Tenerife Canary Islands: Brits face summer holiday chaos as hotel workers to strike every Friday for two months amid anti-tourism war
Brit holidaymakers are set to face summer holiday chaos as hotel workers in Tenerife are set to strike.
Hotel workers in Tenerife are set to strike every single week of summer. The strike actions will see protests outside major hotel chains and Brits facing chaos in July and August.
The strikes were proposed by the main tourism union and are expected to hit the Canary Island's capital, Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Spain. They are set to begin on July 4. They will take place every Friday in July and August.
Union leader Manuel Fitas of the Grassroots Trade Unionists said the action came as employers were yet to agree on a pay rise for hotel staff. He said the employers had a "stubborn refusal" to discuss salary improvements.
Fitas explained that on May 29, they gave employers a fifteen-day deadline to respond to their demand for a 6.5% salary increase before negotiating a new agreement. But employers are yet to come to a new agreement.
Brit tourists should expect major disruptions as the unions intend to launch protests right outside the doors of hotels for maximum impact. Each of the scheduled walkouts and protests will be confirmed on June 16 when the dates are locked in place.
However, the manager of the local employers' association, Juan Pablo González, said they were "moderately optimistic" of making progress in the talks. Asked if they would be willing to make an exception to avoid a strike, he confirmed that "we limit everything to the table because that is how collective agreements are negotiated".
It comes amid anti-tourism strikes in the Canary Islands. "The Canary Islands have a limit" movement argues the Canaries' current economic model is "based on touristification, speculation, inequality and infinite growth in a very limited land".
According to the Canarian Trade Union Federation, the wealth generated by tourism should be distributed more fairly to improve the labour and wage rights of more than 170,000 tourism workers in the Canaries. They also demand fairer distribution of tourism revenue to improve life for Canarians, boosting public services like healthcare, affordable housing and transport to fix the current road collapses.