Efling – union strongly condemns the decision of IcelandAir Hotels to dock the wages of employees for strikes in which they did not participate. Efling also calls on the hotel chain to immediately correct the mistake. The hotel chain has a responsibility to compensate the workers for their loss of wages with added interests and owes them an apology.Efling utterly rejects the attempts of the hotel chain to avoid responsibility in this matter. The representative of the chain has claimed that employees had stated that they were entitled to payments from the labour dispute fund even though they had not been at work. This is completely unfounded. Efling issued detailed written instructions regarding the rights to payments from labour dispute funds and nothing of the sort is written there. The hotel’s explanations therefore fall apart upon further inspection and are a disingenuous excuse.Viðar Þorsteinsson, managing director of Efling says that this is contemptible behavior. “12-25 thousand kronas are taken away from the people who receive the lowest wages. It is frankly unbelievable that the hotel chain should resort to this and we will respond decisively.”Efling will issue a demand for IcelandAir Hotels to pay the people who were not on duty their wages and if they fail to do so then the matter will be brought to court.
