Newsroom
The person cleaning your hotel room, serving your drink or preparing your dinner may be working inside the hotel, but not actually for it.
Trade unions SEK and PEO are sounding the alarm over a growing practice in which hotels and leisure businesses obtain workers from outside employment agencies, paying the intermediary rather than employing the workers directly.
The unions say the system is spreading across Cyprus’ main tourist areas, particularly Ayia Napa and Paphos, but also Limassol. It reportedly affects almost every corner of hotel operations, from cleaners and housekeepers to waiters, bar staff, kitchen assistants and even cooks.
The workers are mainly nationals of countries outside the EU who, according to the unions, were often brought to Cyprus for jobs in other sectors. Some may have been recruited for office or building cleaning, for example, but are then sent by an agency to work inside a hotel.
The arrangement helps hotels quickly cover serious staff shortages. If a hotel suddenly needs 10 housekeepers, it can contact an agency and have the positions filled without going through the normal recruitment process.
But what is convenient for the hotel may leave the worker in a vulnerable position.
The hotel pays the contractor or employment agency, which then pays the employee. Unions say it is often unclear how much of the money reaches the worker, whether social insurance contributions are being paid or whether the employee receives the benefits and protections provided under the hotel industry’s collective agreement.
“Nobody knows what’s happening,” UUXEKA-SEK General Secretary Michalis Frangou told the Cyprus News Agency.
According to the unions, the system creates two groups of employees working side by side. One may be directly employed by the hotel, covered by agreed wages, benefits and working conditions. The other may perform exactly the same job but be paid by the hour through an agency, with fewer protections and no clear employment base.
Frangou described the situation being created as a “slave market,” arguing that staffing shortages cannot be used to sidestep labor laws or collective agreements.
The unions are not opposed to hotels employing workers from third countries. They acknowledge that the hospitality industry is struggling to find staff. Their argument is that foreign workers must be hired through the proper procedures and receive the same basic protections as everyone else doing the job.
PEO representative Neofytos Timinis said these are not isolated incidents, claiming the practice affects many hotels in coastal areas. However, there are no reliable figures showing how many people are involved because, according to the unions, authorities do not have an effective system for directly tracking the practice.
SEK and PEO have asked the Labour Ministry to carry out widespread inspections of both the agencies supplying workers and the hotels using them. They are also calling for penalties wherever violations are identified.
The issue is expected to be placed before the labor minister in the coming days. The unions say that if meaningful action is not taken by September, they will consider legal, industrial and other measures.
Concerns are not limited to hotels. Similar arrangements have reportedly appeared in construction and catering, while unions are also examining cases involving food delivery workers who may be asked to perform other duties inside restaurants.
At the center of the dispute is a simple question: when a worker is sent from one business to another, who makes sure that person is properly paid, insured and protected?
At the moment, the unions say, the answer is far from clear.
