Union enraged as emblematic Marbella hotel initiates plans to lay off 90 employees

The emblematic and controversial Senator Marbella hotel, a symbol of the corruption during the town's Jesús Gil era, is to close its doors, leaving 90 workers without work. On 31 October, the lease contract of the company that operates the hotel, Grupo Hoteles Playa, comes to an end and the company has announced a collective redundancy procedure (ERE) which the CCOO union considers to be a "fraudulent" redundancy procedure.

The hotel will now be managed by the Meliá hotel group, and according to the union Grupo Hoteles Playa has taken advantage of this circumstance to dismiss staff. The CCOO is calling for the "immediate" subrogation of the entire workforce, in application of the Statute of Workers, the collective bargaining agreement of the hotel industry in Malaga and the "reiterated" jurisprudence of the Supreme Court.

"Subrogation is not a concession, it is a right", said the union, announcing that it will take "all necessary actions" to reverse this situation before the labour inspectorate, Marbella town hall and the Junta de Andalucía. Coinciding with the first meeting of the beginning of the consultation period of the ERE, the union has already announced a protest on 9 October at the gates of the hotel.

"This attack is even more unacceptable at a time when Malaga is experiencing the best tourist year in its history, with business profits of more than 22 per cent in Marbella," said the CCOO, which added that it will not allow that "in the middle of an economic boom nobody is left in the street because of a simple change of company". The hotel "remains open, the activity also and the subrogation is not a concession, it is a recognised right," it insisted.