The Tribune

By NATARIO McKENZIE

Tribune Business Reporter

nmckenzie@tribunemedia.net

A hotel union leadership contender yesterday argued that current executives have no “leverage” to employ in negotiating with Baha Mar and the Meliá Nassau Beach Resort because they failed to secure a new industrial agreement in 2013.

Dave Beckford, who led Team Destiny in its unsuccessful 2013 election bid, said the employer was taking full advantage of the fact that there was no agreement in place with between the Bahamas Hotel, Catering and Allied Workers Union (BHCAWU) and the Bahamas Hotel and Restaurant Employers Association (BHEA).

“The union’s leverage is to have a contract in place, and if you don’t have one you have no leverage,” said Mr Beckford. “I am in no way on the employer’s side. Every time this matter goes to court, the injunction is extended and now it’s going to trial. The administration cannot even come on the property. They cannot even represent the workers, and they are paying their $10 every week.”

Tribune Business confirmed that the Meliá has offered its employees a salary advance option equal to three months’ gratuities, calculated at 9 per cent.

In a letter dated April 8, Andrew Tilley, the all-inclusive resort’s general manager, informed employees that despite having reached a verbal agreement with the BHCAWU on a three month gratuity payment trial period, the union had at the “last moment” refused to sign off on the agreement.

“I think the trial was a good option for them to consider how it worked. If it didn’t work and the workers weren’t happy then you go back to the table,” said Mr Beckford.

“I don’t agree with Meliá’s position in withholding the gratuities. Gratuities are 90 per cent or more of the employee wages. Their base salary is very low.

“Due to the fact that there is no contract in place, the employers are taking full advantage of that. One day the administration is saying that we live in the spirit of the agreement but, at the end of the day, when the contract is violated, there is no recourse,” Mr Beckford added.

“Nothing has changed. The injunction was extended and now the matter is going to trial. No one knows how long that will take. In the meantime, the workers are struggling to make ends meet and put food on the table r because of this situation. I don’t agree with withholding the gratuities but, at the end of the day something has to happen.

“The workers need to be told that there is no [industrial agreement] in place and how it is impacting them in a negative way. The employer knows that there is no contract in place, but at least they are in negotiations. At the end of the day it is a very sad situation and I hope that they are able to come to some type of agreement before this trial ends. There really is no recourse for this administration.”

The BHREA said the hotel union missed the October 2012 deadline by which it had to submit its proposal for a new industrial agreement. The then-existing agreement between the two sides, which expired on January 6, 2013, mandated the parties to submit their new contract proposal 90 days before that date.

As a result of the union allegedly failing to meet that deadline, the BHREA adopted the position that the terms/conditions of the agreement that expired in early 2013 would remain in effect for another three years.

Darren Woods, the hotel union general secretary, previously told Tribune Business that the hotel workers it represented still had the necessary protection because both it and the BHREA were operating as if the terms and conditions of the expired 2013 agreement were still in effect.

Mr Woods, though, conceded that salaries and benefits - and any potential increases - were not covered, with the employers association having put the matter before the Supreme Court.

Trade Union Congress (TUC) president Obie Ferguson has noted that a ruling by the Court of Appeal last year in the case of the Commonwealth Union of Hotel Services and Allied Workers, in its dispute with Hutchison Lucaya, operators of the Grand Lucayan hotel, had effectively reversed a long-standing practice of continuing the terms of an employment contract for the individual worker once a properly registered industrial agreement expires, and in the absence of a subsequent registered agreement.