Hotel workers at the Orion Promenade hotel in Nelspruit will have a "black Christmas" this year as their salaries would only be paid at the end of the month, the SA Municipal Workers' Union (Samwu) in Mpumalanga said on Wednesday.

"The workers will only get their salaries on December 29 because management and their union failed to agree during salary negotiations," provincial secretary Kgokedi Mphahlele told Sapa.

"This is not a matter of negotiations, our issue is on a humanitarian basis."

He said his union had been holding a conference at the hotel when workers there complained about not getting their salaries.

"We learnt that the CEO of the hotel is on holiday overseas and the general manager told us there was nothing he could while the CEO was away," he said.

"Clearly the CEO knows the importance of this season hence he took his family on holiday. Now what about these workers?"

General manager Willem Vivier said: "There seemed to have been a miscommunication between us and the CEO."

"But we managed to contact him and arranged for the staff to get their salaries either on Friday or Saturday," said Vivier.

The workers he said had been informed about this on Wednesday.

"If the hotel does not remedy the situation and come to some sort of arrangement with workers as soon as possible, then as the largest union we will stop using the hotel, recommend to the union's national office to do the same," said Mphahlele.

He said Samwu would lobby other unions affiliated to the Congress of SA Trade Union to boycott the hotel.

He said his union was not interfering in the business of the SA Commercial, Catering and Allied Workers Union which represented workers at that hotel.

"We are disappointed to have learnt that Orion Promenade hotel staff will only receive their December salary after Christmas.

"We are crying because the workers will have a black Christmas this year," he said.

Source: Sapa