Presidential Hotel workers protest salary arrears

By Tony Edike

ENUGU – STAFF of Presidential Hotel, Enugu, yesterday, staged a peaceful protest over the non-payment of their salaries and allowances in the past 24 months.

The aggrieved workers, who bore placards, green leaves and chanted solidarity songs as they marched round the hotel premises, called for the dissolution of the hotel’s management board led by Mr. Sam Onyishi, as well as probe the activities and finances of the establishment from December 2009 to date.

Some of the placards carried by the workers read: Please save our families; Hotel Presidential workers are in pains over 24 months of unpaid salaries; Chime, please help us; Our families are dying of hunger; We lack money to feed; and a labourer is entitled to his wages.

Decrying the high level of decay of the hotel’s infrastructure, the workers, numbering over 70, alleged that the hotel had for long operated without a bank account; a development they said had made revenue generated to end up in private pockets.

Reacting to the workers’ protest, Chairman of the hotel’s management board, Mr. Onyishi, described the workers’ claims as “ironic”. He said the board members had not been paid allowances for the last two years.

Onyishi stated that though the management was concerned about the plight of the workers and had tried to find ways of making the hotel function optimally, it was not aware that the workers were embarking on a protest march.

http://www.vanguardngr.com/2011/06/presidential-hotel-workers-protest-salary-arrears/