BRITISH tourists heading to Spain are being warned about a change in their hotel beds next month.
Holidaymakers jetting to sunny hotspots like Majorca will be left without clean towels and bedsheets due to a strike set to start on August 1.
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Laundry workers in the Balearic Islands have announced an indefinite walkout beginning on August 1 in a row over pay.
Union bosses say the £17.25 increase on offer, which would bring salaries up to £950 a month is not enough.
Hotels in Ibiza, where most do their laundry in-house, are not expected to be massively affected.
But unions are warning the other main Balearic Islands – Majorca and Minorca – will be badly hit if the strike starts as planned at 7am next Tuesday.
Miguel Pardo, general secretary of the CCOO Habitat Balearas union, claimed hotels would be the first to suffer because minimum services workers would have to guarantee in any industrial action would be applied to essential services in places like hospitals.
The union boss told the local press: “It could be disastrous for tourism.
“It’s going to affect hotels full-on. There won’t be sheets or towels.”
Around 1,500 laundry workers are expected to down tools unless a last-gasp arbitration meeting with bosses ends in an agreement being reached on pay and conditions.
As well as wage increases, union chiefs are seeking improvements in regulated rest time and extra money for night work as well as a guaranteed two consecutive days off for their members each week.
Mr Pardo claimed workers were being exploited and many were leaving to find new jobs.
The two consecutive days off have been described as a “red line” by union chiefs.
In August last year, just over two million foreign tourists visited the Balearic Islands, making it the most visited region in Spain by non-national holidaymakers.
Just over 26 per cent of the foreign visitors were British, putting us in second place behind Germans who represented just over 28 per cent of the total.
There has not yet been any official comment from hotel associations to the union claims a strike would be “disastrous” for tourism.
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