Great Eastern Hotel sale clears staff

Firm stand of West Bengal govt yields results

The firm stand adopted by the department of public enterprises and industrial reconstruction, led minister Nirupam Sen, on the privatisation of Great Eastern Hotel has paid off, with the opposing labour unions in the Left Front-ruled state accepting the plan and the employee separation package offered by the West Bengal government.

Having realised that the government would not back out this time from privatising the state-owned PSU Great Eastern Hotel, most employees agreed to accept the separation package.

Only the Left Front union Citu were still insisting on negotiations for better terms of settlement.

INTUC leader Subrata Mukherjee said employees affiliated to his body in the Great Eastern Hotel had met Nirupam Sen and accepted the improved settlement package.

INTUC, as the major trade union in the hotel, had sought three concessions - redeployment of young employees, inclusion of career advancement scheme in the early retirement scheme offered and some extra payment under the voluntary early retirement scheme (ERS) option.

The government had accepted these points and employees in response would consider the offer favourably.

In a parallel development, the West Bengal government has asked all nine bidders for a meeting.

The bidders include ITC Hotels, Sinclairs and some foreign hotel chains.

June 30 was the last date for the ERS. So far, few employees had accepted it. The hotel employs around 414 of which only 12 had applied so far.

Among other demands, the trade union wanted 44 contract employees to be given permanent status and jobs or rehabilitation for employees under 45 years of age.

The state government had earlier accepted six demands put forward by the Great Eastern Hotel Officers and Workers association as a pre-condition for accepting the ERS.

These involved payment of three months' salary at the time of serving the ERS notice, payment of food allowance as part of the salary, payment of career advancement dues and payment of salaries till implementation of ERS.

An additional Rs 25,000 was paid to each non-permanent employee, many of whom had been working for many years.

The government would request buyers to see if existing employees under 45 years of age at the time of taking ERS could be re-employed.

The government was hopeful of completing the sale by November 2005.