ORANJESTAD — Hotel The Aruban Resort was given 48 hours to pay their personnel. This was the outcome of Wednesday morning’s summary proceedings, which 76 employees had instituted against the owners. They had demanded a bankruptcy if the hotel had not coughed up the salaries.
The judge determined that the hotel has until four o’clock tomorrow afternoon to come up with the money to pay the employees by nine o’clock on Friday morning at the latest. The Chairman of the trade union FTA, Rudy Geerman, who represents the unsatisfied personnel, expects that the hotel will be declared bankrupt, if the aforementioned does not occur.
The hotel, which also has timeshare rooms, has encountered financial problems for some time now as one of the American banks from which the hotel had borrowed millions of florins, had gone bankrupt. Meanwhile, the approx. two-hundred employees had hardly received their salary for the past two months. In the meantime, 127 rooms were vacated and 465 tourists have been accommodated elsewhere, in other hotels, such as the Marriott and La Cabana. The employees had received 20 percent of their salary from the hotel last week, says trade union Chairman Geerman.
The total amount of the hotel’s debts is not known. However, the company owes the utility companies Elmar and WEB more than 2 million, says Geerman. The hotel still owes approx. 200.000 florins on salaries.
Strike
A large part of the personnel had gone on strike last week Monday. It had not been the first time, either. The Sales & Marketing department had closed at the beginning of this year, and 80 people had lost their job. However, the foreign hotel owners had reversed such a few weeks later. The salary payments had previously been an obstacle as well. Hotel employees had also stopped working a few months ago due to discontentment on their late salary payment.
However, last week’s strike had been the largest.
The management had previously confirmed that the hotel was coping with payment problems due to the debt of millions owed to aforementioned American bank. There had been less hotel guests and therefore less income due to the economical recession. The government had meddled in the matter since last week, in particular to save the employment.