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A 20 year old Cancun employee lawsuit ends with hotel owner eviction

Cancun, Q.R. — A 20 year old employee legal dispute over unlawful dismissals and unpaid wages has ended. At least for now. On Tuesday, the owners of Hotel Club Las Velas Cancun at kilometer 3.5 of Kukulcán Boulevard in the Cancun Hotel Zone, were evicted.

Their eviction came after nearly 20 years of ongoing disputes between hotel employers and previous hotel employees. Lawyer Félix Torres, who represented the 16 former hotel employees, said a suit was filed against the International Tourist Organization company, who owned the hotel at the time.

He says after nearly 20 years of ongoing court disputes, the 16 former workers won their case.

“It’s a long process. We are talking about the fact that around six different lawsuits have been filed by 16 different workers since 2002, which have resulted in the issuance of firm awards despite the fact that the company promoted Amparos,” he explained.

After the company failed to pay, the property was auctioned. The lawsuits “had a consequence,” he reported. “Due to the lack of payment, the auction of the property was decreed and this property was awarded in favor of the workers to cover the debts,” but the property was never delivered which resulted in the Tuesday eviction.

“We are talking about 20 years of litigation,” he said saying that the owners of the hotel processed injunctions over the years instead of seeking agreements or paying the people what they were rightfully entitled to.

“We are talking about 90 million pesos of debts to 16 families that were affected by this situation,” Torres said about the amount of outstanding debt.

He explained that the situation nearly 20 years ago started with company mismanagement. When the hotel began to lose money, instead of paying out their staff, they simply laid them off and never paid benefits, bonuses or salaries, which he pointed out, had consequences since the workers sued for payment.

Torres said that for a long time, embargoes were scheduled and recorded properly, but something always happened that postponed them until now.