The Tribune

By NATARIO McKENZIE

Tribune Business Reporter

nmckenzie@tribunemedia.net

Atlantis and senior government officials yesterday gave different explanation’s for its termination of 30 middle management staff, with the resort attributing the move to a restructuring exercise.

The Paradise Island-based resort, in a statement issued to Tribune Business, said the redundancies were necessary to allow its business to grow and provide the capacity to reinvest. 

It added that to remain competitive, the Brookfield Asset Management-owned resort has over the past several months reviewed its management structure.

“As a result, consolidations have taken place over the past several months, both in Fort Lauderdale and locally, resulting in several management positions being made redundant. The consolidations were primarily at the management level,” Atlantis said.

While the statement did not indicate how many persons had been affected, Robert Farquharson, the director of labour,  told Tribune Business he had met with Atlantis representatives last week, along with other officials from the Ministry of Labour and National Insurance.

Mr Farquharson, though, said the redundancies were due to a planned $30 million renovation of Atlantis’s Coral Towers property, which will have to be closed during the construction.

“This meeting was a standard operating procedure when it comes to companies finding the need to reduce staff,” he said. “They are required by law to meet with representatives from the Ministry of Labour.

“At that meeting, the company revealed that beginning next month, it is going to undertake a $30 million renovation of the Coral Towers, one of the hotels at Atlantis.

“That property has a little over 450 staff, and those staff will be utilsed in other areas of the resort and/or the construction company. However, the company has decided to terminate though the redundancy process 30 middle managers. Those middle-managers are in a  number of areas, but they will be made redundant. They were paid all of their contractual and statutory requirements.”

No mention was made of the Coral Towers renovation in Atlantis’s statement yesterday, although the resort added that the move to cut staff levels had not been taken lightly.

It reiterated that the move was necessary “in order to allow for the business to grow, and to provide for capacity to reinvest, which will result in greater job creation where positions are needed in the future”.

Attempts to reach Atlantis’ managing director, Paul Burke, were unsuccessful up to press time.

Mr Farquharson told Tribune Business: “The [Coral Towers] project is expected to be completed and ready for reopening by the end of this year.

“We would have asked that they provide us with the relevant pay-outs that these 30 persons would be getting to ensure that they were consistent with the provision of the law.

“They were advised to have those persons contact our office to see if they have any issue with their redundancy packages, and see how quickly we can find alternative jobs for them.”