Pizza Hut and Kentucky Fried Chicken will no longer be served in Nepal. That’s just another fallout of the great earthquake that flattened the country. The twist in the tale is that union workers demanded that they get off at 6 pm every evening. The four restaurants, on the other hand, needed to operate beyond that time.

The union bosses demanded that workers be allowed to stop at 6pm so they could go home early to repair their houses and help family and friends. When several of the workers opted to continue working after 6 pm, the union members allegedly beat some up and threatened others.

Now Nepal’s KFC and Pizza Hut restaurants have shut down indefinitely.

Rohit Kohli, director of Devyani International, which runs Pizza Hut and KFC in Nepal, said: ‘We have closed down indefinitely.’

He said: ‘We cannot operate in an environment like this. We have been suffering from labour problems for five years and it has crossed our tolerance levels.’

A union leader in Kathmandu said workers needed time to rebuild their lives to rebuild their lives following the earthquakes. Sita Ram BK said: ‘Many of us have lost our homes and even family members. We can’t be forced to work like nothing has happened. ‘We are hearing rumours of closure, but they have not told us anything. We want them to open the restaurants and let us work.’

KFC and Pizza Hut, Nepal’s only international fast-food chains, opened their first branches in the Himalayan nation in 2010 and have become increasingly popular. Their arrival was seen as a sign of an improving environment for foreign firms in a country ravaged by a civil war between 1996 and 2006, when Maoist rebels agreed to a peace deal with the government.

It hasn’t been plain sailing for the chain. In 2012, the restaurants closed down temporarily for 35 days, saying staff had attacked and threatened to kill branch managers over a labour dispute.

“All that can be said is that with the hard-line stance of the union, they seem to be cutting off their noses to spite their face. Jobs are scarce after the quake and they should let those willing to work longer hours do the work. A confrontational approach will benefit nobody, neither workers, nor the restaurants, nor the people of Nepal,” said one of the disappointed patrons.

  earthquake, KFC, livelihood, Nepal, Nepal Prime Minister Sushil Koirala, Pizza Hut