The Tribune

By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

The hotel union has not filed a trade dispute against Baha Mar, despite the recent 190 Crystal Palace lay-offs seemingly breaching their industrial agreement, because it is focused on “the bigger picture” of getting those workers reemployed by the resort owner.

Tribune Business can reveal that despite previous assertions to the contrary, the Bahamas Hotel, Catering and Allied Workers Union (BHCAWU) DOES have potential recourse against Baha Mar over those redundancies,

This is because both the hotel union and Bahamas Hotel and Restaurant Employers Association (BHREA), which represents New Providence’s major hotels, including Baha Mar, in industrial agreement negotiations, are behaving as if the contract that expired in early 2013 is still in effect.

“We’re still living with the spirit and terms of the contract, although it has expired,” Darren Woods, the hotel union’s general secretary confirmed to Tribune Business. “The terms are still in force, and we’re living with the terms of that contract.”

Robert Sands, Baha Mar’s senior vice-president of government and external affairs, also told this newspaper that the previous industrial agreement’s terms remained in effect, governing the relationship between BHREA member properties on one side, and the hotel union and staff represented by them on the other.

“The terms and conditions of the agreement have not changed,” Mr Sands, who is also head of the BHREA, told Tribune Business.

Given that both sides agree the recently-expired industrial agreement is still in effect, Tribune Business has obtained portions of that contract suggesting it was breached in at least two places over the recent 190 lay-offs.

Section 20 1.2, which deals with staff redundancies, stipulates that hotel employers must give the hotel union “13 weeks’ notice” of plans to close their property.

Mr Woods confirmed this requirement to Tribune Business, alleging that Baha Mar gave the hotel union one hour’s notice before it starting informing Crystal Palace staff they no longer had a job with its Cable Beach Resorts affiliate.

“They have to give 13 weeks’ notice,” the BHCAWU general-secretary told Tribune Business, effectively confirming that the hotel union is not necessarily as impotent as it has previously held itself out to be.

Mr Woods, though, explained that the union wanted the Government to take the lead in dealing with Baha Mar because it felt the penalties/compensation awarded, if the developer was found guilty of breaching the industrial agreement, were relatively insignificant when set against its members getting their jobs back.

“We would have to file a dispute, and the most we would get out of it is pay for 13 weeks,” Mr Woods told Tribune Business.

“We’re looking at the bigger picture, which speaks to maintaining the same number of persons employed or on the job.”

Those latter issues are supposedly governed by the Heads of Agreement that Baha Mar signed with the Government, requiring it to maintain its workforce at current levels and redeploy any staff made redundant elsewhere in its operations.

The Christie administration, though, has yet to make any tangible progress in talks with Baha Mar over the 190 Crystal Palace redundancies.

Tribune Business, meanwhile, has also seen documents suggesting that the Deed of Release which those workers were required to sign may also have breached the two sides’ industrial agreements.

This newspaper’s sources pointed to Clause 30.12 in the contract, which stipulates: “No employee covered by this agreement shall be compelled or allowed to enter into any individual contract or agreement with the employer concerning conditions of employment which lessen the conditions of employment contained in this agreement.”

Mr Woods, again, acknowledged this potential breach to Tribune Business, adding that the union had managed to get some terms in the Deed of Release changed.

“We were able to get the Deed of Release reversed,” he told Tribune Business. “We told them that because of the industrial agreement, they could not get them [the staff] to sign any other agreement. Part of that was saying they could not apply to Baha Mar for 18 months. That’s limiting those employees.”

Tribune Business, though, could find no mention of any ‘18 month’ prohibition on those laid-off Crystal Palace workers reapplying for jobs at Baha Mar in a copy of the Deed of Release it obtained. It is possible the document may have been changed following the union’s intervention.

Anyhow, a ‘confidential’ November 7 letter accompanying the Deed of Release says the ‘Crystal Palace Training Hotel’ is closing its operations because of “a continuous decline in business”.

Employees were informed they would be compensated in line with the Employment Act’s requirements, and also include a Christmas bonus and/or accrued vacation and retirement benefits if earned.

The letter, signed by Mr Sands, also offered an ex gratia payment worth six weeks’ base salary as “an act of goodwill” - provided employees signed the attached Deed of Release.

Mr Sands said there was “no legal or contractual entitlement” to this sum, making clear it was a ‘carrot’ or inducement to encourage the impacted Crystal Palace workers to sign the Deed of Release.

Such contracts are not uncommon when companies are dealing with large-scale redundancies, and there is nothing to suggest Baha Mr has done anything wrong with regard to its Deed of Release.

But, as with most such agreements, the Baha Mar Deed of Release required the former Crystal Palace staff to “withdraw any action, grievances or complaints of any kind” against it within three days of signing the document.

They also had to give up the right to sue Baha Mar in the courts, a step that would to the resort owner not providing them with any redundancy pay, and/or claiming back such payments already made.