The Tribune

By NATARIO McKENZIE

Tribune Business Reporter

nmckenzie@tribunemedia.net

A Cabinet minister has admitted that the structure for this week’s Sandals job fair “looks very suspicious”, given that the 600 employees terminated from its Royal Bahamian property are being forced to reapply for their jobs.

Shane Gibson, minister of labour and national insurance, said: “The only thing I would say is that it looks very suspicious that you would terminate 600 employees while claiming that you had no choice, having been advised by your attorneys, that you had to terminate them.

“Then you turn around and ask these employees to interview for a job that they were doing for the past ‘x’ amount of years.

“You like these employees so much that you determine that the only way you can rehire them is to have them come in and interview for the same job that they were doing and you were happy with.”

Mr Gibson added: “It’s one thing if you want to supplement the employees you had there before by bringing in new blood, but it’s another thing when you say to employees you were happy with can only be rehired if they are interviewed again; not if you said that the only reason they were let go is because your lawyer told you it is the only choice you had.”

According to an advertisement by Sandals, today and tomorrow have been reserved for former Sandals Royal Bahamian team members to reapply for their jobs, with new candidates allowed to apply on Wednesday and Thursday.

The resort chain is clearly using the two-month closure, undertaken to effect $4 million worth of essential repairs and upgrades, to inject ‘fresh blood’ into its workforce and seek out the most productive workers it can find.

But trade unionists and some politicians have argued that the job fair’s ‘two tier’ nature, and the requirement for workers to reapply for their posts, is an indication that Sandals is engaged in ‘union busting’.

The Royal Bahamian’s closure came after several clashes between the resort and the Bahamas Hotel, Maintenance and Allied Workers Union, which saw the latter initiate a criminal prosecution against its top executives, and West Bay Street blocked by dump trucks.

The union has for years been seeking to reach an industrial agreement for members with Sandals Royal Bahamian, and has become increasingly frustrated as all efforts to-date have proven fruitless.

The spectre of a ‘union busting’ exercise was last night raised by FNM leader, Dr Hubert Minnis, who said: “An FNM government will stand for all Bahamian workers, and will not allow the type of union busting we are witnessing at Sandals resort.

“We call upon the management of Sandals resort to immediately rehire all the workers it laid off when they re-open in October, and immediately re-engage with the Bahamas Hotel Maintenance and Allied Workers Union.”

Seeking to make some political capital from the situation, Dr Minnis added: “The Bahamian people deserve better than a Prime Minister that will just sit idly as a resort in the Bahamas engages in union busting, causing the loss of at least 600 Bahamian jobs.”

The Government has come under fire over the closure, although Mr Gibson has maintained that his Ministry only learned of the planned closure on August 1 from media reports.

Sandals has outlined a $4 million renovation to be undertaken during a two-month closure of its Cable Beach property, saying that the work was being “fast tracked” for what is shaping up to be its best winter season ever.

About 60 line staff employees have been sent to Sandals Emerald Bay in Exuma.