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MARIGOT--St. Martin Tourism Office was closed on Thursday as staff staged a walk-out to protest what employees said was disrespect of a long standing Labour Collective Agreement on worker's rights established by the French Government (State).

Labour Collective Agreements were implemented by Government for various institutions, for example for all hotels, tourism offices, car rental companies, and others.

Thursday's strike was the second such protest action in about a month on the same subject.

"The first action was about our rights not being respected," explained Emile Louisy. "Around February 24, we had an issue in the office where we tried to get our voice heard through the union and Labour Department because the Labour Collective Agreement is not being respected. We approached management on many occasions to respect this agreement but to no avail.

"We still tried to sit down with management and politicians and a lot of promises were made. Some of the promises were supposed to be met on March 10, but now we are at March 26, and promises have not materialised and questions have not been answered. Up to now the President Jeanne Rogers-Vanterpool has refused to meet with us."

He noted a Marshall had been sent to observe the strikers with an instruction to break open the padlock to the front gate, however, the gate was reportedly not opened.

According to Louisy the agreement was "partially" respected during the previous tourism office administration but today, disrespecting it amounted to an "abuse of power."

Payment of overtime is one crucial point in the agreement, Grégoire Dumel added.

"The nature of our industry is such that we work all kinds of hours that have not been paid," he said. "In addition, the meal vouchers that we used to get were stopped in October without consulting the staff and up to today we don't know why that was done. On March 2 we had a meeting with the Director, President, and a lawyer but we have not heard any outcome of that meeting. This is a strike by the whole tourism office staff that want answers to their grievances. We did not want to reach to this point but it seems discussion with management is not an option."

Dumel indicated since 2013 there have been no meetings with staff and management concerning staff issues.

"Neither has there been any staff training in six years. Training is imperative to stay competitive and to keep up with changing technology," he said. "But management still wants the budgets, action plans, and reports from us."

Interim Tourism Office Director Kate Richardson explained management is trying to resolve the issues with a lawyer and Inspection du Travail (Labour Inspector).

"It was decided to hire a lawyer specialised in these social issues and social law to get everything back in order," she said. "We HOPE to get it all resolved as soon as possible."

President Jeanne Rogers-Vanterpool told The Daily Herald: "I was made aware of an illegal barricade of the Tourism Office this morning. Since there has been no notice of grievances or a strike, I am unable to comment on the actions of the persons barricading the gates. A Marshall of the Courts was sent to remove the barricade and was turned away by said persons. Currently, since this is in the hands of our legal affairs department, I am constrained to not comment further."