ICU Instructs Mövenpick Hotel To Address Racial Claims

The Industrial and Commercial Workers Union (ICU) of the Trades Union Congress (TUC) has instructed management of the award-winning Mövenpick Ambassador Hotel in Accra to address allegations of racial discrimination in punishing erring staff at the hotel.

The Union says the local workers have complained about unfair treatment against them, but their concerns have been ignored.

Some workers of the hotel in Accra on Wednesday refused to go about their daily routine and protested at the reception of the hotel accusing the hotel management of being racist.

The workers accused the management of the hotel of protecting expatriate workers at the expense of Ghanaians working for the hotel.

One aggrieved staff who spoke to Citi News accused the hotel authorities of shielding an expatriate employee who allegedly stole some gold bars from a guest, whereas some other local employees have been dismissed in the past for stealing food and petty items such as pens.

The leadership of the ICU, which works to protect the interest of Ghanaian workers said the hotel must urgently address the challenges by subjecting expatriate workers to the same punitive measures they subject Ghanaian workers to over the same offence.

The Deputy General Secretary in charge of Operations at ICU, Morgan Ayawine in an interview with Citi News said it was incomprehensible why the management claims it had referred a report on the offence committed by the expatriate to its lawyers to give advice on when Ghanaian workers found to have committed similar offences are outrightly dismissed and reported to the police.

“We are against the fact that, the first report will be referred to legal advice because it has never happened. There have been several investigations on this type of offences but no such demand or requirement has been made. Is it because the person involved happens to be a manager so because the person is a manager then we refer the outcome of the investigation to legal advice but if it is the ordinary worker, they deal with it directly without referring to their lawyers,” he said.

The Management of the hotel is yet to speak publicly to the issue.

---Citinewsroom