The Tribune

By KHRISNA RUSSELL

Deputy Chief Reporter

krussell@tribunemedia.net

GRAND Lucayan managers were told yesterday to either take a final voluntary separation package lump sum offer of $3.1m or risk getting less when they are terminated as part of the hotel’s transition to new ownership.

Although the new offer is only $100,000 more than the board initially agreed to, Michael Scott, Lucayan Renewal Holdings chairman, said unless the government decides otherwise, the board is firm on this “very generous” offer.

Calling the issue a “wrapped hand grenade”, Mr Scott said neither the government nor the board would want to pass the issue on to proposed new joint owners Royal Caribbean International and Mexican port developer ITM. Therefore, he said an obligation existed for the issue to be resolved.

The government signed a letter of intent on Wednesday for the new owners to take over the beleaguered resort in Grand Bahama. 

The managers want $5m as part of a voluntary separation package.

A representative of the Bahamas Hotel Managerial Association could not be reached yesterday, however earlier this week its Vice President Kirk Russell said the managers of the hotel were not being unreasonable and were only asking for fairness and justice in the negotiations.

At the time, a lawyer representing the board said they would not be participating in any further proceedings in this matter set to be heard at the Industrial Tribunal in Freeport.

“The minister may take a softer view, my view is that on the sale the usual position is that the seller in the sale of a business or operation operates legally as an automatic termination of employees,” Mr Scott said yesterday. “Unfortunately that did not happen on the (former) purchase of the Grand Lucayan, but it’s certainly going to happen on this one because I don’t want to pass and nor should the government want to pass the developers a wrapped hand grenade.

“So therefore it’ll be our obligation to settle with the union managers and they could either take the very generous offer that the board has made now, which is $3.1m or they can get less when we terminate them in accordance with the Employment Act.

“It’s a very easy thing. They have a choice.”

He also said: “Now the minister may decide in his wisdom and budgetary largesse may decide that they want to do better than what we’ve offered them, but as far as the board is concerned this is our final position.”

When told the union did not appear to be interested in relaxing the demand, Mr Scott said while this may be the case, it was not a helpful position.

In December, Trade Union Congress President Obie Ferguson, who is the managers union’s lawyer, said different legal interpretations may have contributed to the divide between the two sides over how much is due to middle management staff wishing to exit.

He added the Grand Lucayan is “hell bent” on using the wrong formula to calculate staff operation packages for middle managers.

Back then he said the union was not willing to compromise on this issue, but nevertheless concessions were made in other areas that had slashed the value of its compensation demands by more than $1m.

Mr Ferguson said this had cut the total value of the BHMA’s desired package from an initial $5.4m to “roughly about $4m”, with the association also willing to work out a deal for essential workers who wanted to leave to stay on temporarily so that the Grand Lucayan was “not left high and dry” on guest service.