FREEPORT, Grand Bahama – Managers of the Royal Oasis Resort, union leaders representing the property’s workers and government mediators were yesterday locked in talks over why Grand Bahama’s only casino closed its doors on Sunday, but little has been revealed regarding the closure.
Operators shut the casino down for a few hours allegedly because the casino workers had staged industrial action.
The closure of the property comes on the heels of many months of financial difficulties being faced by the operators of the Royal Oasis.
Royal Oasis management have been embroiled in a bitter labour dispute with the union for several months, and the sick-out during the busy period leading up to the New Year’s holiday was reportedly designed to bring pressure on the resort’s management to grant the union the concessions it is demanding.
But according to Dennis Britton, the president of the union that represents the workers, there was never any call for industrial action.
Some workers also denied that they had staged a sick-out as had been reported. The employees said they reported to work to find that the casino was closed.
Tourism Minister Obie Wilchcombe confirmed to the Bahama Journal Monday that the government, over the past year, has given the operators about $2 million to assist with “marketing efforts.”
When management of the resort decided to close the casino this past weekend, it brought the Chairman of the Gaming Board Kenyatta Gibson into the picture to help sort out the conflict.
He said the government was not taking sides in the dispute.
“What we’re concerned with is making sure that there is proper mediation and that both sides realize that we’re dealing with a very, very vital industry and we bring both sides to the table to discuss this and to come up with a resolution to the problems.”
Mr. Gibson, who travelled to Grand Bahama on Sunday, could not say why the casino was closed.
“The fact that the casino was closed was a matter of great concern,” Mr. Gibson said. “We conveyed our sentiments on that to the operators of the casino in unqualified fashion.”
He said that he got reports on Saturday regarding a sick-out at the property. When he got to the property, he said that he met irate tourists who had planned their trip based on the fact that the property advertised its gaming facilities.
“The Government of the Bahamas noted to the operators of the hotel its disappointment and disapproval at the closure,” he said. “We take the position that when hotels or casinos are closed and our tourism product affected, all of us suffer.”
Tourism Minister Obie Wilchcombe and Director General of Tourism Vincent Vanderpool-Wallace both said that the closure of the casino came at a bad time as many tourists have planned trips to coincide with New Year’s Eve.
Mr. Gibson said, meanwhile, that he was investigating whether the managers acted illegally in shutting the property down.
“The Gaming Board of the Commonwealth of the Bahamas is looking into whether or not there were any breaches of duties and so forth, as regards to laws and contractual duties of both the operator in its relationship with the Commonwealth of the Bahamas and would not want to short circuit the process of natural justice involved,” Mr. Gibson said.
For now, managers of the property remain tight-lipped regarding the closure of the casino.
When contacted Monday night on his cell phone for a statement, Royal Oasis Senior Vice President Donald Archer said he was still in a meeting.
Royal Oasis principal owner, David Buddemeyer, the president of Driftwood Freeport Limited, has steadfastly resisted giving in to pressure from the union.
In an address at the Bahamas Business Outlook 2002 forum held on Wednesday, July 3 in the Camelot Room of the resort, he noted that when he and his partners first became interested in purchasing the former Resort at Bahamia in 1999, it had been on the market for quite some time and they were “probably the fifth investor group to conduct the due diligence process to acquire the property.”
Although a red flag surfaced in their minds as to why the other investors decided not to acquire the property, he said after “serious consideration” he and his partners decided that with substantial renovations and a new brand name, they could turn it into a profitable business venture.
The first challenge they encountered, he said, was to keep the hotel open while doing the renovations. To close the hotel down for an extended period would have meant that hundreds of hotel workers would be out of jobs.
After investing an estimated $70 million to transform the aging Resort at Bahamia into a tourism “oasis,” with a man-made “beach” in the heart of downtown Freeport, Mr. Buddemeyer still had some understandable concerns.
As he noted in his address at the Business Outlook forum, “To keep us from being bypassed by other resorts around the world, we need to make some changes in our productivity. We also need to improve the product, in this case, the tourism product, and the quality level of the service we provide.”
And referring to the problems that his establishment was having at the time with the hotel union, he said, “It is no secret that the union and I are spending some time talking to each other. We need to work together. I cannot do it alone. We have to provide a product to the travelling tourists to encourage them to return. No Government can force them to stay here. No union can demand that they stay here. It has to be their choice. Our job is to market and get them here, while our employees’ job is to make sure they have a good time while they are here. If we don’t, we will find them in the other tourism choices that they have for their money.”
By Candia Dames and Oswald Brown, The Bahama Journal
