Rights violations take the gloss off Maldives luxury Reethi Rah Resort

For six years, workers and their union at Kerzner International Holdings' luxury One&Only Reethi Rah Resort in the Maldives have been fighting union-busting and the resort management's ongoing refusal to implement court decisions in favour of the union, and they continue to fight for their rights.

Faced with abusive working conditions, low wages, management corruption, arbitrary transfers and management's failure to implement the new Employment Act, workers at the resort joined the Tourism Employees Association of the Maldives (TEAM) in 2008 and attempted to raise these issues with management. Management refused to engage in any discussions and began harassing and intimidating union members. Deeply frustrated, union members stopped work in protest on November 28, 2008. On the third day of the protest, management still refused to address workers' concerns and called the police to the resort island. The police attacked the peaceful workers protest with force, batons and pepper spray and then arrested 13 union leaders and members at random and removed them from the island.

Management then terminated these 13 members, who included the union president, and tried to disband the union. In June 2009 the Employment Tribunal of the Maldives declared the terminations unjustified and illegal and ordered the workers reinstated with full back pay. Management refused and appealed the decision. The company lost its appeal and the reinstatement order was re-issued in September 2011. The resort management ignored this again.  In September 2012 the court informed the company that failure to comply could result in seizure of assets.

January 2014 - Reethi Rah workers spontaneously walk off the job to higlight a backlog of grievances. In April, 302 workers signed a petition to management demanding reinstatement of union members sacked in 2008.

In 2013 wage arrears were finally paid under instructions of the court but the management again refused reinstatement. In January this year, hundreds of workers again walked off the job in support of demands over wages, discrimination, accommodation and other abuses - the same abuses which led to the union's formation in 2008. Management again refused to address the workers' demands and again called in police to halt the protest.

In April this year, 302 Reethi Rah workers signed a petition to management demanding reinstatement of the dismissed union members. One&Only claims "blow away the customer" as a corporate 'core value' but in the Maldives seems more intent on blowing away the law. Workers and the union refuse to be blown away and continue to insist on their rights. With the support of the IUF, TEAM has filed a complaint with the ILO Committee on Freedom of Association. The complaint, though formally made against the government, will come to be known as the 'One&Only Case'.

Kerzner International was founded by South African hotel magnate Sol Kerzner, the founder of Sun International, and operates the One&Only and Atlantis brands luxury resorts in the Bahamas, Dubai, Mauritius, Mexico and Cape Town, in addition to Mauritius. Earlier this year Kerzner was forced to yield leadership and control when the Investment Corporation of Dubai, the country's sovereign wealth fund, increased its stake. Kerzner International Holdings Ltd., formally registered in the Bahamas, operates a complicated structure of offshore subsidiaries (blowing away the taxman?), has been advised by Blackstone, has included Goldman Sachs and Colony Capital as shareholders and continues to juggle its debt and its properties. What remains unchanged is a record of employment abuses and contempt for the law, and the determination of the Reethi Rah workers to win their rights.