Savannah’s ex-workers to get severance soon

Former workers at the Savannah Hotel should soon be paid their severance, Prime Minister Mia Mottley revealed Thursday.

She said while there were some “complications” at the hotel, she expected the severed workers to be paid by owner Bernie Weatherhead.

Just last week, the famed South Coast hotel’s ex-employees joined forces with fellow severed employees of Accra Beach Hotel and Spa and Hilton Barbados Resort to protest thousands of unpaid to them.

She told journalists at Ilaro Court: “We are working and I believe those at Savannah and the Ministry of Tourism have been meeting and I hope that Mr Weatherhead speaks to the country if he has not already done so today, but he needs to speak to the country and to the workers and to contextualize his position.

“In fairness, his position at Savannah became entangled with the offer to purchase as a result of a request for proposals and therefore between the banks, Hotels and Resorts Limited and Mr Weatherhead and the workers, that became entangled.

“I believe that there is a way out and that they know what it is, but sufficient to say that those workers who have already received their severance from him have had and those who are there, the majority of them are being taken back and those who will not, will have their severance paid by him.”

But the Prime Minister expressed her disappointment at the attempts by other hotels to avoid paying severance and to place that burden on the National Insurance Scheme (NIS).

She revealed that Government intends to strengthen the National Insurance Act to prevent businesses from using it to their advantage.

Mottley said: “There is one establishment that is still giving some issues. They have agreed that they will pay the severance [but] they want to pay it over a long period of time [but] the Government is not in that! We are not in that! We are very clear; if you can find money to do certain things you can find money to do this too and it is as simple as that.

“The AG [Attorney General Dale Marshall] and I spoke today with Cabinet about also the other clauses that may need strengthening in the National Insurance Act to ensure that we don’t have this kind of cavalier attitude.

“The Act already provides for penalties for example where directors do not appropriately pay over the contributions deducted.

“We may have to look at other ways of strengthening that as well to ensure that people do not offer different types of excuses for not doing what is right by workers of this country.”

The Prime Minister continued: “This Government has been very clear: Barbados has almost 300,000 people living here, the majority of them are workers and we would have to be mad or crazy not to live with each other well.

“We have to accept that on 166 square miles there must be room for workers to have dignified labour and to be appropriately treated.

“Equally there is a responsibility for them to give of their service and to do what they promise to do for the job that they accept.”
(RB)