Former employees of Rabat’s Grand Hotel Verdala on Wednesday gathered on the site where the majestic five-star hotel once stood and called for the payment of arrears they have been owed for 40 years - ever since the hotel shut down in December 1982.

Antonio Tabone, now 72, was 33 years old when he turned up for work at the hotel - where had been working for 12 years, ever since it opened its doors before shutting down abruptly for financial problems. 

“It was Malta’s best hotel. Working there was amazing and we were like a family... We gave the best service but we were completely disregarded. We were told to leave without getting terminal benefits owed to us. It's time for justice and to get what's rightly ours,” said the former concierge.

He said that one fine day - on December 20, almost exactly 40 years ago - staff who turned up for work were told to return home as the hotel was closing. There was no warning.

“We were still owed a few weeks' salary and we never got any termination benefits,” said Tabone who organised the press conference on Wednesday morning. “We are here today to mark 40 years since the hotel closed. To celebrate those golden years and to ask for what is rightly ours,” he said.

Thousands of euro owed

Louis Valletta, who was a head waiter, explained that there were some 150 employees at the hotel when it shut down. They were owed various amounts of money ranging from Lm500 (€1,150) to Lm1,500 (€3,450).

Several former employees reminisced about those old days. “They employed the best when they opened the hotel and we were amongst them,” said Valletta as his colleague Gejtu Farrugia added: “Then one day I turned up for my 4pm shift and was told to report to reception where I was told to go home.”

Chambermaids Doris, Nancy and Joyce recalled how prestigious it was to work at the hotel that attracted various celebrities including Raffaella Carra, Roger Moore and Sean Connery.

Noel Farrugia, a former Labour agriculture minister who was previously the shop steward of the employees, said that it was time for the political and trade union community to honour and appreciate the rights of the workers who had worked hard and were owed termination arrears in line with their collective agreement. 

The former employees said previous efforts to get their money had been unsuccessful. They seemed reluctant to say who they were demanding the money from. 

The Verdala Hotel saga

Located on a ridge -  across Inguanez, ir-Rgħajja, San Bastjan and Santa Katerina streets - the hotel had significantly altered the Rabat skyline when it was inaugurated in 1971 as a 160-bedroom five-star hotel. 

The hotel was owned by international company Max Hotels and, when it experienced financial difficulties, the government of the day got involved to support the hotel and employees, explained Farrugia.

However as the company went bankrupt, the government’s Malta Development Corporation bought the hotel at court auction. Ever since, the employees, through the General Workers Union, have been calling on the government to pay the terminal benefits due to them according to their collective agreement, that is legally binding, he said. 

The hotel was to be redeveloped by construction magnate Angelo Xuereb - through AX Holdings - who paid €6.5 million (Lm2.75 million) for the site in 1994 after winning a government tender.

Initially the planned project was to include an 18-hole golf course stretching down into the valley, a proposal that prompted major controversy and opposition from environmentalists before being finally rejected by the Planning Authority.

Xuereb then demolished the derelict hotel and is building three apartment blocks.

AX Group says it is not responsible

The AX Group in a reaction to the protest by the employees who worked in the hotel between 1971 and 1982, said t it was not in any way involved with the Verdala Hotel operations during these years.  

Moreover, when the AX Group acquired the properties in question in 1997, it did not assume any of the liabilities of former owners or operators of the property.  

"Any claim for compensation raised by the ex Verdala Hotel employees stands to be resolved by the owners or operators at that time or the Malta Development Corporation or its successors in title as the case may be," the group said.