Fragile Stalemate at Jakarta Hotel Gran Meli� - Action Update

Posted to the IUF website 29-Oct-2007

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International trade union support has helped blunt the anti-union offensive at the Hotel Gran Meli� in Jakarta , Indonesia, part of the Spanish-based Sol Meli� transnational hotel and resort group. Management of the hotel has been consistently seeking to undermine the IUF-affiliated FSPM through firings targeting union militants and officers, seizing the checkoff fees which legally should be transferred to the union, and interfering with union access to the membership.

Militant campaigning by the union on the ground together with the IUF's international support have - for now, at least - halted the dismissal of union activists. The legality of the earlier dismissals is being contested in the Labour Court (following a ruling by the Department of Labour that all the firings were legal because some of the dismissed workers had agreed to compensation!), and the union is pursuing legal action at several levels to recover the checkoff fees.

The FSPM has therefore requested an end to the e-mail campaign and thanked the many supporters of trade union rights in Indonesia who sent messages to management of the hotel and the parent company. The union cautions, however, that recent changes in management may point to a resumption of the anti-union campaign, in which case the union and the IUF will again call for international support.