The Evason Phuket resort in Rawai was abruptly closed on Tuesday (May 22), with 450 staff laid off with immediate effect, according to a labour union leader.
Krittiphol Boonreerk, deputy president of the Phuket Island Resort Labour Union told The Phuket News today that almost all the workers at the Evason are seniors, who have spent a long time working at the resort.
“We need the new owner to let them keep their jobs. About 70 to 80 per cent of workers are older, and they will have trouble finding new jobs at their age,” Mr Krittaphol said.
He said workers should register as unemployed with the Labour Office, which will allow them to be added to a job search database.
He also advised workers against signing any documents from Evason without advice from the union, because there might be a risk of them signing away various rights.
Workers were hoping to meet with the owner of the resort on June 12, but at this stage the identity of the owner is still unknown.
V/Gov Sommai told the workers that she will assign the Phuket Provincial Labour Protection and Welfare Office and the Employment Offices to negotiate with the resort owner on their behalf.
EARLIER STORY:
The Evason Phuket resort in Rawai, understood to have been sold recently by owner Sonu Shivdasani, was abruptly closed on Tuesday (May 22).
All 450 staff were laid off with immediate effect, according to a labour union leader.
Warin Sangkong, deputy president of the Phuket Island Resort Labour Union, told The Phuket News that the layoffs had come as a shock, although there had been indications that not all was going well with the resort.
“Since the beginning of last month there were very few people checking in. We tried to meet with the new owners on Friday (May 18) to ask what was happening, but they refused to meet with us.
“We tried to set up another meeting for Thursday (May 24) but we were then told that the resort was closed with immediate effect and all staff were laid off.”
After a meeting to discuss their options on May 22, some 100 of the laid-off employees decided their representatives would meet with officials from the Provincial Labour Office the following day, but this meeting was inconclusive.
Although the staff have been told that they will receive full severance compensation, with the amount depending on their length of service, they decided that the amounts were not enough, and they would demand a doubling of the compensation payouts offered.
If the new owners did not comply, they said, they would take legal action.
This is the second time this year that a major resort has been closed after being sold. At the end of March the Laguna Beach Resort in Cherng Talay was shut down.
There, too, many of the staff, particularly those who had been there for many years, were laid off.
Despite strenuous efforts to contact the new owners for comment, The Phuket News was unable to reach them, or even to discover their names before the press deadline.
A knowledgeable source explained that the sale of the resort followed the sale by Mr Shivdasani of the management company, Six Senses, to an American investment group, Pegasus Capital Advisors. The resorts themselves, however, were not part of this deal as they are owned by a number of companies and individuals.
The Evason in Rawai has been in need of a makeover for some time and it appears that the new owner has bitten the bullet, closing it and clearing out dead wood among the staff.
Asked just who owns the Evason now, and who ordered the layoffs, a Six Senses spokesperson replied, “Sonu Shivdasani has sold the Evason Phuket resort to a third party that is not Pegasus.
“Evason Phuket has been sold as the resort did not fit with the new Soneva Group’s strategic plans. The property was not part of the sale of the Six Senses brand.
“We are not in a position to disclose information about the new owner at this stage.
“We understand that the new owner [intends to carry out] a major refurbishment of the resort and will not be operating it during this period.
“We are working hard to provide alternative employment and we hope we can keep redundancies to a minimum.”