The Tribune

By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

A trade union leader yesterday said the One & Only Ocean Club terminations had reinforced the need for the Government to “move quickly” in changing the law to ensure expired industrial agreements remain in effect until new deals are sealed.

Obie Ferguson, the Trades Union Congress (TUC) president, said the 61 terminations on Paradise Island again showed how aggressively hotel properties were now behaving towards workers and their union in the absence of a valid industrial deal.

He warned that unless legislative action was taken to protect Bahamian workers, it would lead to “a very frustrated industry” and undermine tourism - the economy’s largest sector and private employer.

“This brings home the point we have always advocated to the Government,” Mr Ferguson told Tribune Business of the One & Only Ocean terminations.

“We know what the defects are. We have pointed it out to the Government consistently, and said: ‘Look, if these agreements are going to expire and [the employer] goes to dismiss the worker when it expires, amend the law to ensure the terms that were in place remain in effect until a new industrial agreement is negotiated.

“It shouldn’t take 10 years to do something of that nature. We’ve consistently asked the Government to do it.”

Hotel workers represented by the Bahamas Hotel, Catering and Allied Workers Union (BHCAWU) are especially vulnerable, because its industrial agreement with the Bahamas Hotel and Restaurant Employers Association expired in January 2013.

The union failed to initiate negotiations on a new agreement within the 90-day period stipulated prior to the old one’s expiration, and the employers association said at the time they were continuing to operate as if the old one was in effect.

It has long been the established custom and practice that expired industrial agreements remain in effect until a new one is negotiated. However, unionists are arguing that both Sandals and the Melia have broken with this convention.

Sandals, in terminating its 592 Royal Bahamian staff in the summer to facilitate its three-month renovation project, said it had no choice but to do that given that the sector’s industrial agreement was no longer in effect.

As for the Melia, the Supreme Court ruled last year that no industrial agreement between the resort and BHCAWU had been registered since 2003, thus making it ineffective in law.

Following that, the hotel has discontinued collecting union dues and paying them to the BHCAWU, while also denying union executives access to the property.

The One & Only Ocean Club appears to have adopted a ‘leaf from the playbook’ of both other resort properties. It has already obtained an injunction barring BHCAWU executives from its property, which the union is currently challenging in the Supreme Court.

The high-end Paradise Island boutique also seems to have used its temporary closure, as a result of Hurricane Matthew-related repairs, to follow Sandals in terminating under-performing employees who were undermining the guest experience and jeopardising its five/six-star service reputation.

All the resorts have acted legally, and as they see fit in the management of their operations and pursuit of profits. However, the One & Only Ocean Club’s move will likely reinvigorate union reform demands.

Mr Ferguson said that “probably in excess of 90 per cent of unions” with industrial agreements fail to agree new contracts with employers before the old ones expire, making the need for legislative action even more important.

“There’s a prevailing view now adopted by the employers that if the agreement is not registered, or is not current, then it’s open to them to terminate,” he told Tribune Business.

“Unfortunately, the legal position is they have a right to do it. That is because where you don’t have an industrial agreement negotiated and in effect, based on the ruling of the court in the case of Cable Beach [the Melia], there is very little recourse you have pursuant to the industrial agreement that governs the workers.

“You don’t have any provision in legislation to ensure that when the industrial agreement expires, the terms continue. You do have it in some agreements, but it’s not statutory,” Mr Ferguson added.

“The hotel industry and others, but predominantly the hotels, want to revert back to the old terms and conditions prior to the industrial agreement.”

Mr Ferguson accused the Government of making “one big splash” in suggesting they were going to undertake the reforms demanded by the unions, but it has yet to act.

“I again call on the Government to move quickly to get this resolved,” he told Tribune Business, “otherwise you will end up with a very frustrated industry, which in my opinion is not good for tourism.”

The One & Only Ocean Club situation is also likely to spark renewed union calls for progress on other reform desires, especially the proposed ‘60-day notice period’ that employers must give government and bargaining agents whenever they plan to make 10 or more workers redundant.

In the One & Only Ocean Club’s case, the union was only notified on the day of the terminations, while the Government was warned on Friday.