The Tribune

By RASHAD ROLLE

Tribune Senior Reporter

rrolle@tribunemedia.net

ANOTHER round of employee furloughs and the Minnis administration’s extension of special emergency powers are pushing Atlantis employees like Areba Bridgewater to the brink.

Employers would normally be required to give workers like her a redundancy package after 12 weeks of not paying them a salary.

But the grace period letting businesses retain employees without paying them is a source of intense frustration to some even as others believe the provision is a boon to many people hoping to find their job still available when the pandemic wanes.

“I don’t know how much longer they’re going to expect us to hold on,” Ms Bridgewater said yesterday during a press conference involving several furloughed Atlantis employees. “What are we holding on to? Every time the emergency order is extended, it is in favour of the employers. What are the employees supposed to do?”

The temporary lay-off, or furlough period, during which companies can send employees home without paying full severance pay or other benefits expires some 30 days after the emergency powers end. Yesterday the Senate passed a resolution extending the emergency order to May 23.

A waitress working at Atlantis for 13 years, Ms Bridgewater said she has been furloughed since March 16 last year. Her two children, including one with “special needs”, are among her greatest responsibilities.

Weekly unemployment benefits of $100 per week only go so far helping to pay bills, she said.

She also noted that unemployment benefits, which have been extended until the end of February, have declined since the start of the pandemic, raising questions about whether cash-strapped workers will soon be receiving just $75 weekly.

“I’m already up to here waiting on Atlantis, “ she said. “I’ve already reached out months ago, asked about the redundancy package, and I was told that, in a nutshell, Atlantis wasn’t moving in that direction. So, what am I supposed to do if National Insurance has already decided for me that unemployment benefits stop at 13 weeks even though I’ve been paying National Insurance for years? Without foreigners travelling, there isn’t much talk about travelling anywhere now. When is the government going to realise tourism is no longer our number one industry? Invest in your people. Why do the employers have the upper hand over the employees?”

A heartwarming scene emerged in December as Atlantis executives applauded hundreds of returning workers and media crews waited to interview them.

But the resort has twice announced a new round of furloughs since then amid low occupancy rates and US President Joe Biden’s announcement that international travellers will have to quarantine on arrival in the United States, an announcement that sparked cancellations at the resort.

Labour Director John Linder said in September that most employers do not have enough funds to give employees severance packages, adding that many would go bankrupt if forced to do so.

“It would be comparable to the situation that happened to CLICO some years ago,” he said.

Yet for Patrice Burrows, 49, the extraordinary COVID-19 pandemic does not justify suspending key provisions of the Employment Act.

“I ain’ hoping to be made redundant, you know, I just want them to give whatever the law states we are entitled to get, that’s what I believe we should get,” she said. “If (redundancy) is what the law says, do what the law says. I know with my (redundancy) funds, my children, my family and my husband and the church backing me, it will go a long way.

“The challenges with not having a job, not having a salary is, you can’t do the things you normally used to do. My husband works for government and I say thank God for him, he handles the bills part of it. The part I used to deal with, he has taken it on.”

Asked if furloughed workers are shortsighted for demanding they be made redundant, Dave Beckford, a long-time advocate for workers at Atlantis, cited the unpredictability of the pandemic.

“Remember the last opening up in July? They opened up a couple weeks ago, they called workers back, but sent them home. It’s unpredictable,” he said.

“Give the workers who want to be redundant, give them their package and be done with that. And when business returns to some normalcy, these same workers here, if they so desire and wish, they should be called back to work, but in the meantime, do what the law says.

“The law ain’t only there for the employer. What about the workers?”