Guests flee as striking workers wreck hotels

Press, 3 November 1983, Page 3

Guests flee as striking workers wreck hotels

NZPA Papeete, Tahiti

Striking hotel workers. smashed furniture, heaved dishes into swimming pools, and overturned cars in a dispute that has terrorised tourists and emptied three of the island’s posh hotels in peak season. The strikers, demanding more time off and other , concessions, also took hotel food and looted goods from the struck establishments, witnesses and hotel officials said on Tuesday. The closed hotels account for 630 of the island’s 1500 hotel rooms. The strike came as the tourist season

The walkout started on October 26 but did not turn violent until Sunday, when strikers blocked exits at Tahara’s, the Sofitel Maeva Beach, and the Tahiti Beachcomber hotels, trapping hundreds of frightened tourists inside for 24 hours.

Among those trapped were three airline relief crews, causing long delays for scheduled flights out of the South Pacific tourist spot, administered by the French Government. An Air New Zealand crew tried to escape by using a small boat anchored off the hotel beach, but gave up , after youths threatened to pelt them with stones, newspapers reported. However, the airline employees were later allowed to cross the picket line outside the hotel. The police said the guests, lugging their own bags, were allowed to cross picket lines and leave the three hotels on Monday, going to establishments unaffected by the walkout or cutting short their holidays. But the strikers refused to allow anyone into the ! three hotels and they were forced to close. A- fourth hotel affected by the walkout, the Matavai,

continued to function on Tuesday, the management filling in for striking staff. A hotel spokesman said there were no pickets at the Matavai. The violence first began when several dozen strikers strung up rope and wood barriers outside the Maeva Beach. Hotel. The police and pickets engaged in a tug-of-war over the rope. The police retreated when the strikers stoned them, then charged back lobbing tear gas. Four policemen suffered minor injuries. Early on Monday, strikers and youthful sympathisers broke into the 200-room Tahara’s Hotel, smashed furniture, threw dishes into the pool, and damaged vehicles. They lifted up the hotel manager’s car and carried it into the lobby.

“They tipped my tfar upside down,” said.* hotel spokesman, Mr MiciSel Wilson. “Five cars were tipped

over at our hotel. No-one appears in any immediate danger but the situation is still very tense.” The police, apparently ordered not to confront the strikers after Sunday’s violence, ringed the hotel but made no attempt to stop the destruction or arrest the vandals. Tahiti is a French overseas territory. Several local newspapers have criticised French officials, who have final authority over internal security matters, for not cracking down on the strikers. The strikers demand a 40hour, five-day working week. The employees work a six-day, 48-hour week. No tipping is allowed at Tahitian hotels.

The leader of the local Hotel Employees’ Union, Mr Didier Kintzler, called for a general strike beginning yesterday. Tuesday was a national holiday.