The Tribune

By LEANDRA ROLLE

Tribune Staff Reporter

lrolle@tribunemedia.net

FORMER employees of the shuttered Club Land’Or resort on Paradise Island claim they are owed thousands of dollars in unpaid wages, severance pay and other benefits despite long years of dedicated service before the resort’s closure in 2020.

Some former employees claim they are owed up to as much as $100,000, while others allege being owed some $50,000 in back pay.

The situation has sparked anger among the workers, with one of them claiming to have done “every single thing under the sun” without success to get the matter resolved.

“We wasn’t getting pay,” said Raymond Mackey yesterday. “They paid us some weeks and wouldn’t pay us the next week and so the money would add up. Sometimes you would go a whole month without getting pay. Some of us they owe like 50 grand. At least I could talk for myself and I was working there for about 19 years.”

When contacted for comment yesterday, Labour Director Robert Farquharson suggested the reason behind the delayed payments was due to the property going bankrupt.

However, he said his department was seeking to bring resolution to the situation after receiving several informal complaints from former employees of the resort.

He said: “The Department of Labour is aware of an ongoing situation where the former employees of Club Land’Or are owed severance packages because the club has been closed for some time. No formal trade dispute has been filed at the Department of Labour.”

 “However, the Department of Labour is aware and we have been involved in discussions and the discussions are ongoing. The situation is the owners of the hotel, it’s a bankruptcy situation we are advised and discussions are well underway in having the matter resolved.”

 However, according to one redundant worker, their cries continue fall on deaf ears.

 “We have done every single thing under the sun,” Audrey Saunders recently told The Tribune. “We are no longer represented by the union, nothing to do with the staff’s ability to pay because this stinking company Club Land’Or was taking money out of our pay and not paying the union.

 “The union ceased to represent us. You can’t treat workers in this country this way so right now, we have no voice. I am one voice and in this mad country in The Bahamas if you don’t have someone backing you, dog eat your lunch. I am tired because it’s madness.”

 Ms Saunders continued: “A few weeks ago, I spoke to Mr Farquharson and when I spoke to Mr Farquharson, he said to me that it’s no longer a labour issue. This is a mess in the country and that time they ain’t telling the staff nothing. 

 “Everyone ignoring us like we’re the plague. Potcake is get treated better than us. He said to me this was no longer a labour issue, it was a legal issue and that an agreement was signed for the sale of the company or business but he’s not in a position to give me any answers... so what do you want me to do. You trying to tell me you have no answers to give a group of people who is dismissed from 2020 and not receiving any kind of financial assistance. What do y’all want us to do?”

  Asked about those claims yesterday, Mr Farquharson responded: “There’s a situation with bankruptcy and bankruptcy is addressed to the legal system in the Bahamas so the bankruptcy doesn’t come before us. So, as I indicated as a result of the complaints, some informal complaints that we had, we undertook an investigation to ascertain what the facts are and I indicated that the hotel has been closed for some time and the employees are owed some significant earned pay, vacation pay as well as redundancy pay. We have intervened with the owners in an effort to resolve the situation and the matter is ongoing.”

 The Paradise Island resort has been a troubled property for many years, with its financial difficulties making headlines several times.

 This newspaper has also previously reported workers’ complaints about outstanding wages over the years.

 “Since 2012, things were going downhill,” said one worker who asked to be anonymous. “On a weekly basis, at the last minute, they say you’re not going to get pay today because there’s no money and there was a lot of back and forth and you bending over backwards and you working.

 “It was one of the things that we had to encounter and ever since it was going downhill, at the end of the day they had an attitude with you when you asked for your monies. So, that wasn’t sitting well with all of us. When it was during the COVID, many met and we thought the general manager would’ve been there to say what is what, but he didn’t see the need to speak to us.”

 Workers say they have been told monies would be paid when the property is sold. However, some said they are unable to wait until then, citing financial difficulties.

“Banks are not people friendly. Landlords are not people friendly,” Ms Saunders said.