For six years, workers and their union at Kerzner International Holdings’ luxury One&Only Reethi Rah Resort in the Maldives have been fighting union-busting and the resort management’s ongoing refusal to implement court decisions in favour of the union.
Faced with abusive working conditions, low wages, management corruption, arbitrary transfers and management’s failure to implement the new Employment Act, workers at the resort joined the Tourism Employees Association of the Maldives (TEAM) in 2008 and attempted to raise these issues with management. Management refused to engage in any discussions and began harassing and intimidating union members. Deeply frustrated, union members stopped work in protest on 28 November 2008. On the third day of the protest, management still refused to address workers’ concerns and called the police to the resort island. The police attacked the peaceful workers protest with force, batons and pepper spray and then arrested 13 union leaders and members at random and removed them from the island.
Management then terminated these 13 members, including the union president, and tried to disband the union. In June 2009, the Employment Tribunal of the Maldives declared the terminations unjustified and illegal and ordered the workers reinstated with full back pay. Management refused and appealed the decision. The company lost its appeal and the reinstatement order was re-issued in September 2011. The resort management ignored this again. In September 2012, the court informed the company that failure to comply could result in seizure of assets.
In 2013 wage arrears were finally paid under instructions of the court, but the management again refused reinstatement. In January 2014, hundreds of workers again walked off the job in support of demands over wages, discrimination, accommodation and other abuses – the same abuses which led to the union’s formation in 2008. Management again refused to address the workers’ demands and again called in police to halt the protest.
In April 2014, 302 Reethi Rah workers signed a petition to management demanding reinstatement of the dismissed union members.