Staff at a hotel where asylum seekers are set to be housed from next month are “in shock” after a redundancy announcement.
Workers at Stradey Park Hotel & Spa in Llanelli, Carmarthenshire, were told this week they face being made redundant on 10 July.
Sky News understands around 100 staff are employed at the hotel.
The Home Office confirmed at the beginning of June that a maximum of 207 people, made up of family groups, will be accommodated across 77 rooms at the hotel.
It insists it makes no decisions about hotel staffing directly.
‘They’re laying everybody off’
Victoria Price has worked at the hotel’s spa for around 15 months.
She told Sky News everyone was “in shock” when they heard staff would be made redundant.
“They called an emergency meeting in the hotel for yesterday (Tuesday) morning, we all went in,” she said.
“It was the two managers of the hotel there talking to us. The hotel manager – she had to hold the tears back you could see – and she just announced that they’re laying everybody off as from 10 July, even them are getting laid off.
“The owners of the hotel… they didn’t even come down to give the news themselves, they left it to the two managers who are also going to lose their jobs as well which is really sad.
“The whole of the staff upstairs were all waiting, nobody was looking for jobs, they were all sticking together, waiting ’til final last minute, hoping that they were going to get offered something or that they wouldn’t get left.
“It was just silence when they broke the news.”
‘Disgraceful’
Llanelli MP Dame Nia Griffith said it was a “disgraceful and degrading way to treat the workers”.
The matter was raised in the Senedd (Welsh parliament) on Wednesday.
Plaid Cymru Senedd member, Cefin Campbell, said he was “alarmed” by reports that “around 100 jobs at the hotel will be lost as a direct result of the Tory UK government’s decision to take over the hotel for the purpose of housing asylum seekers”.
Mr Campbell said he was “extremely proud of the fact that Wales is a nation of sanctuary” but that the UK government’s hotels policy “does not serve the needs of asylum seekers”.
Jane Hutt, the Welsh government’s social justice minister, said: “I understand that up to 100 jobs are at risk as a result of the Home Office’s decision to use the Stradey Park Hotel.”
She added that the Welsh government was “monitoring this concerning situation closely”.
Carmarthenshire County Council leader, Darren Price, said he was “outraged that this proposal by the Home Office to concentrate a large number of asylum seekers is going ahead”.
The Home Office has previously said the use of hotels to house asylum seekers was “unacceptable” and said there were currently “more than 51,000 asylum seekers in hotels costing the UK taxpayer £6m a day”.
Rishi Sunak’s government is exploring a number of ways of housing asylum seekers, including a controversial barge to be moored off of the Dorset coast.
The prime minister’s promise to “stop the boats” was one of a number of pledges he asked the British people to judge him on at the start of the year.
But figures released this month show Channel crossings are still on the rise.
‘They’re going to destroy a community’
Stradey Park Hotel worker Ms Price said she was in a more fortunate position than others as she had managed to find employment elsewhere before the hotel’s closure.
“We’ve got an amazing manager in the spa with us and we just all rallied, we just looked for jobs, so all the spa girls got new jobs before. So we’re all leaving this week, it’s the last week for us now,” she said.
“Everybody has been brilliant and we’ve noticed now on the groups that a lot of the community, the businesses and things, are putting it out there ‘I’ve got jobs, I’ve got jobs’ so that shows what the community is.”
While the community have rallied around staff members, Ms Price said the Home Office should “hold their heads in disgrace”.
“They’re actually going to destroy a community, jobs, things like that,” she said.
“They haven’t got in touch with anybody, they won’t respond to anybody’s messages or anything either.
“You’ve got people like myself who has only been there about 14, 15 months, so we wouldn’t be entitled to redundancy pay or any kind of package or anything like that. Nothing has been put in place for any of the staff.”
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A spokesperson for the Home Office said: “Hotel staffing decisions are at the discretion of the hotelier and contractors. The Home Office is not involved in these decisions.”
Sky News has approached Stradey Park Hotel & Spa for comment.