Protecting Workers’ Rights: The Tourism Employees Association of Maldives

The Maldives is famous worldwide for its luxury resorts, turquoise lagoons, and overwater villas. Yet behind the postcard-perfect image lies a workforce that long struggled for basic rights. Tourism contributes a huge share of the country’s economy, but the people who clean the rooms, serve the meals, and keep resorts running often faced low wages, discrimination, and weak job security. The Tourism Employees Association of Maldives (TEAM) emerged to change this. This post explains how a single workers’ organisation became a powerful force in Maldivian civil society and reshaped labour rights in one of South Asia’s smallest nations.

What is TEAM and why was it formed? 🔗

The Tourism Employees Association of Maldives was formed in 2008. It is widely regarded as possibly the first trade union in the country. Its creation was directly tied to the larger democratic transition the Maldives was undergoing at the time. Until 2008, trade unions were effectively not permitted. The passing of a new Employment Act and the adoption of a new constitution that year formalised trade union rights, including the right to strike.

The trigger for TEAM’s formation was concrete. Workers at the luxury One&Only Reethi Rah resort faced what labour groups described as abusive working conditions, low wages, arbitrary transfers, and a refusal by management to implement the new Employment Act. According to the International Trade Union Confederation, these workers joined TEAM in 2008 and tried to raise their concerns with management. When management refused to engage, the dispute escalated quickly.

The Reethi Rah strike of 2008 🔗

Frustrated by the lack of dialogue, union members stopped work in protest on 28 November 2008. On the third day, management still refused to address the workers’ concerns and called the police to the resort island. The crackdown was severe. In a predawn raid, members of a special police unit arrested 13 strikers, including TEAM’s president Ahmed Easa. Several workers, including the union’s leadership, were dismissed from their jobs.

This early confrontation set the tone for years of struggle. The Reethi Rah dispute alone dragged on for years, with workers and the union fighting union-busting and the management’s refusal to implement court decisions in their favour. The episode revealed the central problem TEAM would spend over a decade fighting: the country had no real legal framework for industrial relations to protect organising workers.

The core issues TEAM fights for 🔗

TEAM’s agenda has remained remarkably consistent since 2008. The association focuses on a set of interlinked problems that affect tourism workers across the Maldives.

Wage disparities 🔗

For years, local resort workers earned very little despite working in some of the world’s most expensive hotels. The average monthly salary for local resort workers sat at roughly US$200 to US$250. TEAM consistently demanded a minimum monthly wage of US$600 for resort workers, arguing that those generating the country’s wealth deserved a fair share of it.

Workplace discrimination 🔗

Discrimination against local Maldivian workers was a recurring grievance. At Reethi Rah, over ninety percent of Maldivian staff went on strike over alleged discrimination, citing unequal pay, racism against local staff, and unfair treatment in benefits and promotions compared to foreign employees. TEAM also pushed for an 80 percent quota for Maldivians in the tourism industry to protect local employment.

Job security and service charges 🔗

Summary dismissals were common, and workers depended heavily on the service charge added to guest bills. A key TEAM demand was a mandatory and fairly distributed service charge, alongside the resort shares for workers that had been promised by politicians. Job security remained fragile because union members were frequently the first to be dismissed.

How TEAM campaigns: tactics of a civil society actor 🔗

TEAM’s methods illustrate how civil society organisations operate in environments where formal legal protections are weak. The association combined traditional union tactics with creative and modern approaches.

Strikes, protests, and petitions 🔗

Direct action has been central. Workers staged walkouts, signed mass petitions, and held rallies. In one notable instance, 302 Reethi Rah workers signed a petition demanding the reinstatement of dismissed union members. These petitions were also delivered to the President’s Office and parliament to apply political pressure.

Creative protest at sea 🔗

Because laws restricted strikes and demonstrations on resort islands, TEAM found inventive workarounds. In one striking example, around 100 workers from eight resorts gathered at a sandbank to protest at sea. A union leader explained that holding the rally on a sandbank symbolised how workers felt stranded in the ocean, ignored by successive governments. This shows how civil society adapts its tactics to restrictive legal conditions.

Social media and public awareness 🔗

TEAM and allied groups used blogs and social media to document abuses, publicise strikes, and build solidarity among scattered island workforces. In a country where workers are physically isolated across hundreds of resort islands, digital communication became essential for organising and keeping issues visible to the public and the media.

Building dialogue between workers and employers 🔗

Despite frequent confrontations, a major part of TEAM’s work has been to establish dialogue. The association repeatedly sought meetings with resort management, government ministries, and the attorney general. While employers often resisted, TEAM’s persistence gradually forced labour issues onto the national agenda.

This pressure paid off in policy terms. TEAM’s general secretary, Mauroof Zakir, was a recognised voice representing workers when major reforms were negotiated. The association became part of a broader coalition, the Maldives Trade Union Congress (MTUC), which met directly with the President to relay concerns from the tourism, fisheries, education, and health sectors. This shift from street protest to the negotiating table marks the maturing of TEAM as a civil society institution.

Influencing government policy: the major wins 🔗

Years of campaigning produced concrete results that transformed the lives of tourism workers.

The first minimum wage 🔗

In November 2021, the Maldives set a statutory minimum wage for the first time in its history. For the tourism sector, it was fixed at 8,000 Maldivian rufiyaa, equivalent to about US$519 monthly. The government estimated that roughly 13,000 of the 16,000 Maldivians employed in tourism would benefit, with many seeing their salaries effectively double once the service charge was added. This was a landmark achievement for the cause TEAM had championed since 2008.

Mandatory service charge 🔗

An amendment to the Employment Act, effective in 2021, made it compulsory for the tourism industry to levy a minimum 10 percent service charge and distribute it equally among all employees. A dedicated Service Charge Regulation now governs how this money is collected and shared, directly addressing one of TEAM’s long-standing demands.

The Industrial Relations Act of 2024 🔗

The biggest victory came in early 2024. After a decade of advocacy by trade unions, the President ratified the Industrial Relations Act and the Occupational Safety and Health Act. The Industrial Relations Act formalises trade union rights and structures collective labour relations for the first time in Maldivian history. It establishes a National Tripartite Labor Advisory Council, protects the right to collective bargaining, and safeguards the rights to freedom of association, assembly, and strike. Notably, it provides a legal mechanism for all workers, including migrants, to bargain collectively. Before this, workers had relied on informal associations or registered NGOs that offered limited legal protection.

Strengthening advocacy through legal collaboration 🔗

In recent years, TEAM has deepened its impact by working with legal and international partners. The association is affiliated with the global union federation IUF, which amplified its campaigns. When the government proposed changes to employment law that would have weakened worker protections, TEAM led the mobilisation to defeat them, warning the amendments would facilitate mass retrenchment and the targeted dismissal of union members.

These collaborations matter because the Maldives historically lacked the legal infrastructure to enforce worker rights. By pairing grassroots organising with legal expertise and international solidarity, TEAM moved from reacting to crises toward shaping the laws themselves. Engaging with the Employment Tribunal and the courts also became a steady part of its strategy, even when implementation of favourable rulings proved difficult.

TEAM as a model for civil society in South Asia 🔗

The story of TEAM is bigger than the Maldives. It demonstrates how civil society can drive democratic change in small states with concentrated economic power. Tourism dominates the Maldivian economy, and resort owners have historically held significant political influence. Against this imbalance, an organisation of ordinary workers managed to win a national minimum wage, a mandatory service charge, and a comprehensive labour rights law.

TEAM’s journey also reflects a wider South Asian pattern, where labour movements are often intertwined with broader struggles for democracy and accountability. Its evolution from underground association to a recognised partner in national policymaking shows that persistent, organised civil society pressure can succeed even against powerful interests. The progress remains fragile, and enforcement continues to be a challenge, but the legal foundations TEAM helped build give workers tools they never had before.

What do you think? If a country’s economy depends heavily on one industry, should workers in that industry be given stronger legal protections than others? And what role should international labour organisations play in supporting domestic civil society movements in small nations?

References

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trade_unions_in_Maldives
2. https://survey.ituc-csi.org/Maldives.html?lang=en
3. https://maverickmagazine.wordpress.com/2008/11/30/maldives-crackdown-on-tourism-workers/
4. https://maldivesindependent.com/tag/tourism-employees-association-of-maldives-team
5. https://maldivesindependent.com/politics/resort-workers-protest-at-sea-144662
6. https://maldivesindependent.com/politics/reethi-rah-workers-strike-over-alleged-discrimination-75025
7. https://presidency.gov.mv/Press/Article/25068
8. https://www.ttgasia.com/2021/11/24/maldives-minimum-wage-move-brings-joy-to-tourism-industry/
9. https://edition.mv/maldives/23364
10. https://practiceguidesdev.chambers.com/practice-guides/employment-2022/maldives/trends-and-developments/O11516
11. https://www.solidaritycenter.org/milestone-for-maldivian-workers-industrial-relations-and-occupational-safety-and-health-bills-enacted/
12. https://apexlaw.co/new-industrial-relations-act-introduced-paving-way-for-formal-trade-unions-and-stronger-worker-protections/
13. https://www.iuf.org/news/maldives-team-leads-fight-to-stop-new-attacks-on-employment-and-workplace-rights/