Minister of Economy, Elena Máñez has announced today that The Canary Islands Government’s Hospitality Advisory Board has this Monday approved a guide to job security advising companies in the hotel sector dealing with the COVID-19 response, in collaboration with tourism employers and unions.
Representatives of the sector’s main business associations (FEHT, Ashotel, Asolan and Asofuer), the UGT and CCOO unions, the government’s Labor and Social Security Inspectorate have all participated alongside the regional government’s departments for Tourism, Trade and Health.
Máñez explained that the Advisory Board has tried to compile “an action guide designed, mainly, for the small to medium [sized] hotelier“, who may find it difficult “to have [available] all the [necessary] tools and means for occupational risk prevention”, taking into account the new sanitary and hygiene recommendations derived from the COVID-19 pandemic response.
The guide “aims, on the one hand, to guarantee the safety of workers and employers in the application of the corresponding measures” and to provide COVID-19 security procedures involving “new organisational measures at work and their impact on the day to day”.
Máñez explained, “the goal is for the Canary Islands to be recognised as a safe destination, as endorsed by the World Tourism Organisation on its visit” last week and, in this way, in some small way “to safety in the workplace “.
Unions have described the document as “positive”, said head of the UGT Canarias hospitality sector, Paco González, who stressed that it is “exhaustive” although “some [details] are still missing to adapt it to workplaces.”
These details, such as the use of different types of masks for maids, and the organisation criteria for buffets, are being worked on to achieve “a mixture of safety and health as a priority” and adapted “to cost and economy” so as to reach “a balance from [a perspective of] awareness and responsibility”.
