This announcement came from Minister of Financial Services and Investments Allyson Maynard-Gibson during a telephone interview on Sunday, where she said that the workers “will be paid what is due to them.”
The 340-room property, was built and operated by WEDGE Hotel Management (Bahamas) Ltd. since 1982, and employs over 200 workers. The new owners, a Spanish group called RIU Hotels and Resorts, will convert the Sheraton Grand into an all-inclusive property. The hotel will reopen late November 2004, with former employees receiving first preference for employment; it is anticipated to employ some 300-350 employees, and more rooms will be added to the property.
“Those employees who have been laid off will be given first choice on construction jobs during the renovation, which will be about $20 million; and when they are recruiting to open the hotel, the current employees will have the first option to make applications and if they qualify, they will be the first to be engaged,” Mrs Maynard-Gibson said. She assured that union employees were satisfied under the terms of their industrial agreement, and explained that there were discrepancies of whether there would be full payment for temporary employees and managerial staff.
Mrs. Maynard-Gibson and Minister of Labour and Immigration Vincent Peet met with the hotel managers, and assured them that they would be paid. “The big news is that where there was a question as to whether they were managers or not, they got the full 48-week package. So everybody got that full 48-week package,” she said.
It took a degree of persuasion she said to convince the owners of their corporate duty to compensate their workers. “The current owners indicated that they had been advised that there was no legal obligation to pay the temporary employees; and that the managerial employees were not in fact managers because they had no power to hire and fire,” Mrs Maynard-Gibson said. “There were several other circumstances which indicated that they were in fact managers and so we indicated to them that we expected them as good corporate citizens to do the right thing and they did.”
With an air of excitement, the Minister said that the new owners, the RIU Group, presents a unique form of ownership to the local tourism product. In the context of this internationalisation, the RIU family, owners of the chain, set up a company in 1993 with their traditional German partner TUI (Touristik Union International), the largest tour operator in Europe with some 100 aircraft under its command. “They are a Spanish group and they are now growing in the Caribbean. They tend to own more than one hotel in any destination that they go into. They also own their own travel group, and so what happens is that they are able to bring their own people to wherever their hotels are,” Mrs Maynard Gibson said.
RIU Hotels and Resorts was founded in 1953 with a small hotel on Mallorca. It expanded to the Canary Islands, and in the nineties, commenced its internationalisation as a chain with the opening of the hotel Riu Ta�no in Punta Cana (Dominican Republic). From this island, the chain has expanded in the Caribbean, Mexico, and also in Florida. On the company’s website, www.riu.com, The Bahamas is already listed as a destination for “Hotel Riu Paradise Island – 6307 Casino Drive Paradise Island, Paradise Island, Bahamas. Tel. (1)2423633500 Fax. (1)2423633193.”
Mrs Maynard-Gibson said: “We believe that we will see some significant growth in the European tourism market because of this acquisition and the link with the hotel group and the tour operator group owned by the same people.”
Vanessa Rolle, The Nassau Guardian
