2017-11-26 Citizens' Forum to Louvre Group
Editor's Note:
From: IITK CF
Date: 26 November 2017 at 07:48
Subject: Requesting your response on mass layoff of workers at IIT Kanpur, India
To: pfroulot@louvre-hotels.fr, ROULOT Pierre-Frédéric <pfroulot@louvre-hotels.com>, benjamin.dornic@cn.lafarge.com, c.lemercier@gmail.com, contactclient@louvre-hotels.com, Saurabh Chawla <sauchaw@gmail.com>
Louvre Hotels Group
Village 5, 50 Place de l'Ellipse, 92081 Nanterre, France
25th November, 2017
Mr. Pierre-Frédéric Roulot
Chairman and CEO
Louvre Hotels Group
Dear Mr. Roulot,
Recently we wrote to the Managing Director of Sarovar Hotels & Resorts, a subsidiary of Louvre Hotels in India expressing our concerns on the way it is managing Visitors’ Hostel at IIT Kanpur, India. We have copied those emails to you as well. Since we did not receive a satisfactory response from Sarovar, we would respectfully ask you the following questions:
· Is it a common practice for your affiliates not to hire employees with a long tenure and excellent record when they take over a contract from another contractor? Would your company allow this in France foregoing good talent? This is exactly what Sarovar has done at IIT Kanpur when it was asked to manage Visitors’ Hostel.
· Is it a common practice for your subsidiaries to hire inexperienced migrant workers to replace experienced local workers? Migrant workers who may not be familiar with the type of work or geographical realities of the new place nor speak local language?
· You may like to know that when a contractor hires migrant workers in India, it is subjected to special labor laws contained in Inter-State Migrant Workers Act (ISMW). From what we have learned, it appears that Sarovar has been violating the ISMW Act. In a recent meeting with the faculty, the Director also seemed to express concern on this issue. Would Louvre treat its contract workers without respecting regulations in France?
· Has your subsidiary Sarovar been contributing to the EPF and ESI accounts of the employees as per statutory requirements to agencies based in the city of Kanpur?
· Being in Hospitality business, would Louvre hotels or its subsidiaries use leftover food to serve as meals in the following days? We have learned that Sarovar may be doing this at IITK.
· Being in Hospitality business, would Louvre hotels or its subsidiaries permit deterioration in the quality of services and decline in customer satisfaction? We doubt it, yet guests at Visitor’s Hostel have exactly reported that. In a meeting with faculty, IIT Director has admitted that professional services promised by Sarovar have not been up to the standard.
· Would Louvre refuse to converse with the stakeholders or potential clients of its services? Yet, this is what Sarovar’s management has done.
We would be very interested in your response to our concerns stated above.
Sincerely,
On behalf of Citizens' Forum of IIT Kanpur Alumni