The practice of renting workers to hotels, spanning roles from cleaners and chambermaids to waiters and even cooks, is breaching collective agreements and labour legislation, the trade unions SEK and PEO have said, according to CNA. The unions say they are awaiting action from the Labour Ministry, having already met with the Department of Labour and written to the Department of Labour Relations. The general secretary of PEO's SYXKA hotel workers' union, Neophytos Timinis, said the matter must now be examined by the responsible minister, signalling the unions' intent to pursue measures if the issue is not addressed.
Michalis Frangou, general secretary of SEK's OYXEKA hotel workers' union, said some hoteliers rent workers through agencies that bring in staff from third countries, ostensibly to provide services in other sectors such as office and building cleaning, but who then end up working in hotels instead. He said this creates serious distortions in the hotel industry through breaches of collective agreements and labour law, and that the practice is not limited to a single category of staff but spans a broad range of hotel roles. Asked whether the issue mainly concerns chambermaids, Frangou said "it's everything," specifying cleaning, kitchen and housekeeping staff, bar and restaurant workers, and confirming that cooks are also affected, though he called this less common.
Frangou described how the system works in practice: a hotel needing, for example, 10 chambermaids at short notice can approach an agency supplying workers from abroad. The hotelier pays the contractor or agency, he said, without it being clear how much of that payment ultimately reaches the worker. He said this creates a "two-speed" workforce, undermining collective agreements and labour legislation covering both employment terms and the hotel sector's collective agreement and regulations, and described the resulting situation as a "slave market."
Not isolated incidents
Timinis said the scale of the problem cannot currently be quantified in numbers, since that responsibility falls to the Department of Labour and the Labour Inspection Department. He said the Department of Labour has publicly acknowledged it lacks the mechanisms to directly monitor the problem, and warned of where the situation could lead without adequate checks. He said this is not a matter of isolated incidents but a practice affecting most hotel units in coastal areas, particularly in Ayia Napa and Paphos, but also in Limassol.
Timinis said the ministry must take a position on the issue and make clear that such forms of employment are prohibited, calling for intensive checks by the Department of Labour, since subcontracting within hotels, whether in kitchens, housekeeping or cleaning, is inherently unlawful. He explained that the workers involved are typically third-country nationals channelled into hotels through temporary employment agencies or recruitment offices, working according to the unit's needs without a fixed employment base, with it remaining unclear whether benefits and social insurance contributions are properly paid, since payment passes through the intermediary agency before reaching the worker. "These employees are paid by the hour, with no application of the collective agreement and no benefits," he said. He attributed the situation to weaknesses in Cyprus' foreign labour employment strategy, existing loopholes and insufficient oversight.
According to assurances the unions received from the director of Labour Relations, the issue will be raised with the minister in the coming days. Timinis said serious measures must follow, adding that the unions are jointly considering further steps within September if no solutions materialise.
Labour shortage acknowledged
Asked whether the practice partly reflects genuine hotel staffing shortages, Frangou said no one disputes that a labour shortage exists, clarifying that SEK is not opposed to employing third-country workers provided this happens through the proper procedures. He reiterated SEK's position that Cyprus' foreign labour employment strategy needs revisiting to prevent irregularities and exploitation, whether of existing workers or those yet to arrive, and said the underlying causes of the hotel staffing shortage should also be examined.
SEK and PEO have repeatedly raised the issue with the relevant authorities, meeting with the Department of Labour in early August and sending a further letter to the Department of Labour Relations, from which a response is awaited. In a letter sent last week, the unions described the practice as taking on uncontrolled proportions, extending beyond temporary employment agencies to companies acting as labour suppliers to hotels and leisure venues, and demanded immediate, targeted and substantive checks on both the supplying companies and the hotels using their services, along with full enforcement of the law and all applicable administrative and criminal sanctions where violations are found. "Our unions will not stand by passively," the letter said, warning of trade union and other lawful measures if the authorities fail to intervene effectively.
Also affecting food service
Asked whether similar practices exist beyond hotels, Timinis said comparable phenomena occur in construction and food service. Asked whether food delivery riders also work as waiters at the restaurants they deliver from, the PEO representative said requests have been submitted for the renewal of the sector's collective agreement, which will also address greater transparency around delivery platforms' algorithms to help identify cases of unlawful worker rental and exploitation. Charalambos Avgousti, general secretary of SEK's OMEPEGE union, said the union has repeatedly asked the Labour Ministry to carry out checks on delivery riders at the locations where they wait to collect orders, adding that the ministry periodically updates the union on the findings, which have included people working entirely without the required documents. Avgousti said SEK has not been informed how many cases exist of riders also working as waiters, but that the issue will be raised with the ministry ahead of upcoming negotiations to renew delivery riders' collective agreement, noting that waiters' and riders' collective agreements and working conditions differ.
Source: CNA
