The Tribune

By RICARDO WELLS

Tribune Staff Reporter

rwells@tribunemedia.net

EMPLOYEES at the One&Only Ocean Club said they are fighting “unrelenting battles” on two fronts – the worst management team staff at the Paradise Island resort have ever seen and an unsupportive union that has done little to ensure the working rights of members are being respected.

Nearly six months after staff pleaded with Foreign Affairs and Immigration Minister Fred Mitchell and Labour Director Robert Farquharson to look into their allegations of “unethical operations” by management at the luxury resort, employees said they have now been presented with and made to sign a legally binding document without representation.

The resort’s management body presented its 26-page “Code of Business Conduct and Ethics” during meetings last week, which in addition to capping the gratuities employees could accept also limits who employees can do business with away from the resort, the type of gifts employees can receive from guests and encourages whistleblowing against other employees.

“This is the worst management team in the history of this property,” claimed one longstanding employee, who did not want to be named.

The worker told The Tribune that the attitudes of those placed in charge at the resort have worsened in recent months.

“We have co-workers battling at the Industrial Tribunal to keep their jobs, others being threatened on site and some being pushed into a corner, being forced to fall in line or get out,” the worker alleged.

“I don’t understand what is happening here. Every day it gets worse. I don’t know if the plan is to force all the workers here out or what? But, things need to be fixed or improved because it can not continue like this.”

Asked about Ocean Club’s code of conduct document, the worker said: “I didn’t sign it because something didn’t seem right about the entire thing. I was given the document by my manager, I was told to go through it and sign it. All I had to do was look at the last page, that’s where (management) basically spells out that they can fire (employees) for anything.”

A version of the document’s final clause seen by The Tribune indicated that while the document was not an employment contract, it was specified that signing or lack thereof would affect continued employment.

Another employee interviewed by The Tribune said that they were given only a half hour to peruse the document and sign it before leaving the property.

That employee said they asked if they would be allowed to have a union representative look over the document, but were immediately informed that the document was not allowed to leave the property or be presented to the union.

When contacted by The Tribune, Bahamas Hotel Catering and Allied Workers Union (BHCAWU) President Nicole Martin said she had been made aware of the document and was attempting to get a copy of it.

She said that to her knowledge, two employees had signed the 26-page document, but she had informed other members of the union not to do so.

Ms Martin contended that the document infringed a number of legal precedents in The Bahamas and didn’t hold merit for Bahamian workers. She said her union intends to pursue the matter in court, if necessary, to protect its members.

Meanwhile, scores of employees at Ocean Club, who are represented by the BHCAWU, suggested that past actions by Ms Martin have left them “out in the cold on a number of matters.”

“She isn’t bad at what she does, but most of what she has done for us at the Ocean Club has left us in a bad place with the employees and because of her last misstep, we are suffering,” one worker said.

Last June, Ms Martin was escorted off the Ocean Club property by police officers and taken to the Central Police Station, where she was released after a short period without charge.

According to reports, Ms Martin wanted to meet with the resort’s management team over redundancies and changes to shift patterns at the resort.

The worker added: “Since that incident, management has ramped up efforts to push us around and force us into things we don’t want any part of. Now the union is, at best, working far, far, far in the background because they have lost their bite.”

Last May, the resort laid off all 29 of its staff members employed at the Courtyard Terrace restaurant, but a number have been rehired after appeals to the government and at an the Industrial Tribunal.