The Tribune

By LEANDRA ROLLE

Tribune Staff Reporter

lrolle@tribunemedia.net

THE head of the hotel union has a message for Atlantis executives who want workers to speak out against Royal Caribbean International’s proposed Paradise Island project: “Put your placards on and go do what you (are) telling us to do.” 

“Lead and we will follow you … maybe,” said Darrin Woods, the president of the Bahamas Hotel Catering and Allied Workers Union (BHCAWU).  

Mr Woods’ comment yesterday came after Atlantis president and managing director Audrey Oswell urged staff in a letter to speak out and “make their voices” heard on the project, which has been approved subject to environmental approvals.

Ms Oswell previously called the government’s approval of the project “premature,” citing concerns about its potential environmental impact. 

“The potential impact on our beaches, marine life and water supply could be devastating if the appropriate environmental controls and practices are not carefully planned and executed,” she wrote to staff members on Tuesday.  

“As the leader of tourism for The Bahamas and long-time stewards of the ocean and its marine life, caring for the environment has become part of our DNA. It is at the core of who we are and what we do.”  

Mr Woods, nonetheless, said workers need to know the facts before opposing the deal.

“First and foremost, I have to understand the reasoning behind it because not because you tell me I must take a stand, I must go and take a stand, because the problem is you find that people, what they’re trying to do is get other people to fight their battles for them,” he said.  

“You have to first tell me what it is. How is it advantageous for us as Bahamians? How is it disadvantageous for us as Bahamians?  Not because it affects you as an individual. Even when we call our members to do some stuff, (we have to) explain to them how it is going to impact them.” 

Mr Woods questioned what Atlantis executives have done to stop the project other than speak to the media.

“If they’re so passionate about it, why they don’t do something?” he said.  

“Tell them to put on placards and walk down the street like how they are telling us to go and do it. They wouldn’t do it.”

In her letter, Ms Oswell suggested the project could affect the livelihoods of tourism workers on Paradise Island.

To this, Mr Woods said: “We are in an industry where it is driven by occupancy. As a matter of fact, every day you go on a job — what could happen unless you own the place?”

“It’s easy to rabble rouse people. It’s easy to do that but we have to know what the substance is.”

 The $110m Royal Caribbean project will feature water sports, entertainment venues and other amenities. However, Atlantis executives have raised concerns about the desalination and wastewater treatment plants required to service the project and potential “noise from large numbers of people, music, jet skis and other activities and amenities offered at the project.”  

 Last month, Prime Minister Phillip Davis acknowledged Ms Oswell’s concerns about the development, saying: “I think they may have been ahead of themselves in the sense that those concerns all will be taken into account when the final decisions are made in respect to what the development looks like.” 

“They still have to go through the environmental process to determine what is environmentally friendly. That’s not my call; that is the Department of the Environmental Planning and Protection Agency. They will look at what is there and they will tell us about the environmental impact that the development has, and they will decide whether it will go on in that in the form or fashion.”

 In a statement yesterday, RCI said it would share details about the economic benefit and environmental impact of the Paradise Island project in the coming weeks.