The Tribune

By NATARIO McKENZIE

Tribune Business Reporter

nmckenzie@tribunemedia.net

A hotel union executive yesterday said it would be a “sad situation” if Baha Mar is unable to resolve its dispute with its Chinese partners by next Monday, and ultimately have to lay-off 2,500 workers, adding: “We hope and pray it doesn’t come to that”.    

Bahamas Hotel, Catering and Allied Workers Union (BHCAWU) secretary-general, Darren Woods, said that while the union does not yet have membership within the affected Baha Mar properties, it was nonetheless concerned over the fate of such a substantial number of employees.

“That’s a lot of people to be out of work. It would be sad,” he said. “At the end of the day we knew something like this might have happened because if no money is coming in, they could not sustain it. We are hoping for the best because that’s a lot of people to be out of work.    

“The concern for us would be from a humanistic standpoint and, in particular, some people would have left jobs to go there. They reached out to people who were abroad to come home.

“It has a domino effect. You have workers who are connected to it, and vendors who are connected to it. We are praying that everything works out and things get on a proper footing.”    

As revealed by Tribune Business, Baha Mar will reduce its workforce to just 52key employees essential to run a ‘skeleton operation’ if it is unable to resolve the dispute with its Chinese partners by next Monday.

Court documents filed by the $3.5 billion developer reveal the full extent of the radical downsizing strategy it will adopt if it is unable to reach an agreement with its debt financier, the China Export-Import Bank, “in the near term”.

Branded the ‘Preserve and Maintain Alternative’, the plan implies that more than 2,500 Baha Mar staff could lose their jobs within the next two months if the developer, its Chinese partners and the Government are unable to reach a settlement in their ongoing talks in Beijing.