By ANDREW MUKOMA
MINOR Hotel, partly owned by UPND president Hakainde.
Hichilema and Senior Chief Mukuni, has declared 150 employees redundant at its Avani and Royal Livingstone assets.
And Labour Commissioner Givens Muntengwa said of- ficersfrom the Ministry of Labour and Social Security had been dispatched to the hotel to make financial assess- ments on whether the business was viable.
The move which will be ef- fected next month is a way of downsizing labour in view of the Covid-19 that has ravaged the hospitality industry. General Manager for Avani Hotel and Royal Livingstone Laurie Burr said if the people were not laid off the business could only have money up to November.
This is contrary to his state- ment some weeks ago that the hotel was not going to let go of anyone. But now, Mr Burr said,
the hotel has applied to the Ministry Labour to effect the redundancies so that opera- tions could continue.
He said hotel management also agreed to reduce the man- hours to 70 hours per month for the workers effective September.
Mr Burr said the hotels had only been at 48 percent since this year and the situation was not expected to improve until in the second quarter of next year.
He said this when he ad- dressed workers at Avani HHe said the two hotels were de- signed to work with 513 em- ployeesduring peak periods.
And Hotel Catering and Allied Workers of Zambia (HCAWZ) president, Michelo Chizyuka also told the Daily Nation that the workers would be declared redundant.
And Mr Muntengwa said tourism was badly affected by Covid-19 and people must reflect on that.
