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Ballymun Plaza workers stage demo

Tuesday, 29 April 2008

EMPLOYEES from the Ballymun Plaza Hotel who lost their jobs when its operators were evicted from the hotel on April 18 staged a protest last week to highlight their grievances.
According to Miriam Hamilton, SIPTU organiser, the workers claim they are owed a significant amount of money in unpaid wages, holiday money, Sunday premium and overtime.
“Employees at the Ballymun Plaza Hotel are facing a bleak future without any wages or social welfare payments since their eviction from the hotel on April 18,” she said.
Ms Hamilton explained that over the last few months the workers in the Ballymun Plaza Hotel joined SIPTU.
“But before we could negotiate on pay and conditions of employment, the hotel was closed,” she said.
All of the hotel workers come from the general Ballymun area and in some cases their spouses are on long-term disability payments and so they cannot claim unemployment benefit.
Ms Hamilton said the hotel was built as part of the Ballymun Regeneration Project and the workers, and their communities, were promised decent jobs and a sustainable future.
“SIPTU is putting pressure on the owners to ensure that any new operator will re-engage these workers and ensure that they are covered by the transfer of employment legislation,” said Ms Hamilton.
In a statement released to the media last week, the hotel’s owners, BBT Developments Ltd, said it wished to confirm that it had closed the Plaza Hotel in Ballymun due to a commercial dispute with the operator of the premises.
“BBT Developments has put in place a temporary management team at the Ballymun Plaza to ensure an orderly closure,” said the statement.
“The team will facilitate guests with existing bookings to find new accommodation. All those who have made forward bookings will also be facilitated.”
The statement added that BBT Developments has been a key partner with Ballymun Regeneration in the redevelopment of the area. It insisted that BBT remained committed to Ballymun and once the current dispute was resolved, it would renew that commitment to the area.
“BBT Developments regrets that this action to close the hotel has been necessary,” the statement adds. “The workers at the hotel were retained by the operator of the hotel and BBT regrets that they have been caught up in the dispute.”

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