After fifteen months of unemployment, Betel Serra finally returns to work.
And is that the famous Hilton hotel had been closed due to the pandemic. This week it reopened, bound by a new city law.
“I was receiving ‘unemployment’ but as now the ‘unemployment’ has already been canceled, it was making it difficult for me to see how I was going to pay my ‘bills’, how I was going to put simple things like food,” said Serra.
And it is that the municipal council and the mayor’s office approved a law that obliges hotels with more than 100 rooms to pay compensation of $ 500 per week -up to a maximum of 30 weeks- to each employee they had before the pandemic, if do not reopen before November 1.
This legislation helps Bethel, a mother of 3 children.
“This helps us because now the hotels are going to be forced to open, in which they are going to give an opportunity to people like me who have worked here for 15 years to return to our work and be able to support our family,” said Bethel. .
Betel.
–
The objective is to reactivate tourism in the city.
“We are trying to restore the economy in New York City, it all starts with tourism. These hotel workers have been essential to our economy,” said Council Member Francisco Moya.
But this law has also caused controversy because several hotels complain that the city is forcing them to reopen before November 1, when the White House has not even said on what exact day it will open the borders with several European countries.
“The hotels are not closed because they want to be closed, they are closed because there is no business, be it tourists or business trips. The government should reopen borders, give more security and clean the city instead of forcing us,” said VIjay Dandapani, President, New York City Hotel Association.
The hotel industry had already been losing clientele before the pandemic, in part to online platforms like AirBNB. Then came the COVID crisis. The few hotels open have no more than 35% customers, according to the New York Hotels Association.
Meanwhile, the Hilton Hotel makes improvements to receive customers in its first week of reopening, but only about 300 of the 1,300 employees it had before the pandemic have been reactivated.
Visit the NY1 News page with our special coverage on the coronavirus:
Coronavirus outbreak
– .
