Trouble during Easter weekend.

Hotel and restaurant workers at Monte Carlo SBM are on strike this weekend. Union members of Hotels-Cafes-Restaurants (HCR), and Cuisiniers and Patissiers (cooks and pastry chefs) stopped work for 72 hours from 6am yesterday, Friday, 2nd April. The strike was confirmed by Olivier Cardot of the Union Syndicale of Monaco but as yet we don't know how many have walked out.

The cause of the industrial action is a disagreement in how to share out the savings generated by lower VAT rates that were introduced 9 months ago. According to Cardot, when VAT rates were lowered on 1st July 2009 from from 19.6% to 5.5%, SBM consequently made savings of 20 million euros. Many restaurants, bars and cafes passed savings on to their customers in the form of lower prices, but at Monaco's largest employer's establishments, unions are demanding 50% of the windfall for their workers. SBM managers are reported to have said there's no legal precedence for such a demand. Nonetheless, yesterday evening they entered into negotiations with the unions to allocate part of the VAT related increased turnover to workers, back dated to July 2009.

SBM assures its customers that standards of service will not be affected over Easter.

SBM : employees claim their slice of the cake

Strike in several of Monaco's grand hotels and restaurants