Over the course of a powerful campaign throughout 2020 and 2021, workers at the Sheraton Grand Conakry secured permanent employment contracts, healthcare coverage, overtime pay and significant raises. As they mobilized toward a strike for the reinstatement of two terminated union officials, management announced that the hotel would close in December 2021, citing a mold issue that required extensive renovations.
- Following closure of the hotel, the union representing the Sheraton workers, IUF affiliate FHTRC-ONSLG, successfully fought and negotiated payment of full severances, bank loans forgiveness and recall rights for all employees on permanent contracts
- As part of the IUF’s longstanding work to hold the principal investors—the International Finance Corporation (IFC) and the Dutch Development Bank (FMO)—accountable for its labor rights commitments, on January 18, 2023, the IUF and Global Labor Justice filed a Compliance Advisor Ombudsman (CAO) complaint citing the IFC’s failure to remedy the hotel’s numerous violations of Guinean labor law and international conventions including the company’s refusal over several years to pay wages, overtime, and healthcare, as well as to respect freedom of association
- At the IUF Africa Regional Conference in Benin in December 2022, FHTRC-ONSLG Treasurer and IUF Young Worker Committee member Alhassane Diallo spoke about the organizing strategies learned on the Sheraton Grand Conakry campaign and their recent work to unionize the other hotels in Conakry where the fight continues
Alhassane Diallo, FHTRC-ONSLG Treasurer, stated, “Our most important priority when organizing hotels is to do outreach, get to know the workforce, identify their issues, and then mobilize them to win.”
