‘Victimized employees’ of Sheraton Colombo Hotel write to President

Employees of the Sheraton Colombo Hotel who have had their employment suddenly terminated have written to the President appealing for intervention against alleged severe labour rights violation and misappropriation of money by foreign investors of the hotel.

In their letter, they urge the President to intervene against “an unprecedented scale of labour right violations of hundreds of employees and misappropriation of hundreds and millions of our country’s money” under the pretext of “foreign investment”, by the Indian owners of M/s Lanka Hotels and Residencies (Also known as Sheraton Colombo).

“We are compelled to bring this matter to your Excellency’s personal attention as we are of the view that otherwise political and bureaucratic influence may prevent the delivery of justice to hundreds of affected employees in this case,” the letter from ‘Victimized Employees of Sheraton Colombo Hotel’ reads. 

Apprising the President of the current situation of the employees of the Sheraton Colombo, the letter states that the Indian owners of this project, possibly with the connivance of local partners, unilaterally terminated the employment of 113 employees without any compensation effective from 1st of April 2020. 

In addition, it said there are 70 other employees who have been already issued with employment offer letters by Sheraton Colombo being the victims of this arbitrary termination. That makes the total number of employees who simply lost their employments is 183. 

“It is pertinent to mention that we the employees were deprived of our salaries for the month of March 2020. And, then the March salaries were paid on 22nd April, that again only 50% of the base salary without any allowance,” the letter said. 

It said that the Indian owners have then sent an e-mail to the General Manager on 22nd April 2020 mentioning that all the 183 employees were terminated effective from 1st April 2020. “That means, we would not get any salary for the month of April as well.” 

The letter further stated that the owners have retained few senior managers on 25% of base pay for a period of six months. It said that all 183 employees had joined Sheraton Colombo at the expense of their earlier employments in star class hotels in Sri Lanka and abroad. 

“Hence, this abrupt and illegal termination of employment has literally put us and our families in dire straits,” the employees say. 

Mentioning about the recent history of this project, the terminated employees state that they were enlisted to the Sheraton Colombo from January 2020, and the hotel was to open at the end of March 2020. 

“However, as we have witnessed that the Indian management did not progress the construction and other preparatory work of this hotel project properly and with the genuine focus of opening the hotel by the end of March 2020.” 

“We are now compelled to think that COVID-19 situation was a blessing in disguise for the hotel management to close down the operations as they may have made their money by now,” the letter reads. 

“But, our concern is that, they not only looted our country, but also made money at the expense of means of living of hundreds of employees.” 

They charge that even during construction period, the employees were not properly paid and they had to resort to strike on several occasions. “As a matter of fact, this hotel project was still in its pre-opening stage, hence there was absolutely no operational impact or cash flow deficiency due to COVID-19 lockdown.” 

It said that the money required for pre-opening capital and recurrent expenses were already budgeted and available. Therefore, fabricated “economic impact” of the prevailing health emergency is only a deception and cover up to hide their ulterior motives, the employees charged. 

“It is also important to bring to your kind information that, there are more than 300 Indians are employed in this project, perhaps in sheer violation of BOI approved local/ foreign employee ratio in a project of this nature.” 

“These Indian workers are given all the facilities where as we the local employees are deprived of our basic labour rights,” the employees claim. 

They also allege that the Indian owners had over-valued this property at No 265, Galle Road, Colombo 3 as well as the project to avail hundreds of millions of Rupees on loan from Sri Lankan Banks, and syphoned off a large portion of that money to India. 

“Furthermore, we are made to understand that the Sheraton management has availed itself all the banking and other regulatory facilities extended to investors towards the mitigation of COVID-19 pandemic impact, but they do not appear to use any such financial facility for the well-being of employees or to secure their employments whatsoever.” 

“We are equally suspicious that the Indian management would obtain COVID-19 concessions from the Sri Lankan government or Banks to make few more hundreds of millions of money for them,” the letter said.

In this backdrop, the terminated employees appeal to the President to intervene in safeguarding the labour rights of hundreds of employees of the Sheraton Colombo, and also to investigate in to the present status and future viability of this project in terms of government’s expectation out of such a BOI approved investment project.