The Barbados Hotel and Tourism Association (BHTA) has accused the local labour movement of running an “unprecedented smear campaign” on social media that could damage the reputation of stakeholders in the industry.
On Tuesday, during the association’s quarterly media briefing, chairman Renée Coppin said she was appalled by recent attempts by the labour movement to tarnish the image of the tourism industry.
What was most disturbing, she said, was that these efforts appeared to be part of a strategy to boost union membership.
Insisting that her organisation would no longer sit back in silence, a visibly upset Coppin said: “We in the BHTA must address a worrying trend that we see emerging in our industrial relations environment. Unfortunately, this industry is too important for us to sit idly by while persons use it to experiment with social media marketing techniques and membership recruiting . . . . We can no longer sit silent and bemused as reels featuring irresponsible content, fallacious logic and even household pets bring our industry and the people who work so hard in it into disrepute . . . . A lot of the things that are floating around are out of context and sometimes simply inaccurate.”
Although Coppin did not name any particular union, over the past few weeks, there have been videos on the Barbados Workers’ Union (BWU) social media platforms with messages about the alleged mistreatment of hospitality workers. In some of those videos, people identifying themselves as hotel workers complained about poor working conditions, having to buy uniforms and work equipment and not getting the service charge collected by establishments. In one video, a union representative also said she was informed by a worker that there were no cleaning agents to clean hotel rooms and the worker had to use shampoo which was provided for guests during their stay.
Coppin said a number of the allegations were generalised and in some instances so “silly” that they merited “no response” from the organisation.
However, she said she was deeply concerned that the public, upon watching these videos, would believe what was being said.
“All of our members are committed to ensuring that they provide the best possible solutions to their staff. Where we have identified concerns, every single property has come to the fore and worked with BHTA and other parties to try to find solutions. It is very difficult to speak to generalities because there have been a lot of generalities thrown around. I heard a very kind of inane suggestion yesterday regarding cleaning supplies [and] I can’t speak to things like that because they are so inane that they honestly don’t bear a response.
“But the challenge for us is that when you put that out there and the public hears, they are going to assume that it is true, and true for all the hotels and businesses in the sector. We cannot speak to specifics in this forum, it is very difficult. Every property and business may have challenges but when those challenges arise, I can assure you that our commitment as an industry and as owners in this industry is to resolve those concerns positively [and] progressively,” Coppin said.
She said several matters were brought to her association’s attention by unions through formal correspondence and the issues were ironed out. She said she was surprised that that same approach was not taken as it relates to the issues being complained about on social media.
“I have never seen anything like it in IR [industrial relations]. I don’t know if this is a new direction the unions are going in, but for us it is about our people and addressing concerns. I can’t, in a public space, speak to a general complaint that sometimes is unspecified. What I can do, if you put in writing or call or speak to us about a concern you have is go to that member, cause we don’t own these businesses, and work with that member to seek resolution, and that is what we have done in every single instance,” the BHTA chairman said, adding that she was unaware of any issue that was brought to the association that the organisation itself or hotel in question did not respond to.
In fact, Coppin said the BHTA was currently undergoing a process of collective bargaining negotiations and stressed that there was “no breakdown in this process”.
“Additionally, we have committed to measures outside of this bargaining process which, while extraordinary, show our commitment to utilising every channel to resolve the concerns of our teams within this sector. To this end, there have been meetings facilitated at the highest level and the BHTA has repeatedly committed to investigating concerns with hoteliers once the information is shared with the association . . . . The collective bargaining unit presently stands at 22 of our 80 hotel members. Data will show that once we receive information about an issue at a member’s property, whether or not they are a part of the collective bargaining unit, we engage in dialogue towards an effective solution.
“We will continue to negotiate in good faith and following the commonly accepted practice. We will not, however, be casual observers to an unprecedented smear campaign against our industry nor any practice of generalising to the entire industry the reports of one member or individual. We have never, and will never, deal with concerns of our teams via the media. We do not and will not negotiate via social media,” she insisted.
Barbados TODAY reached out to the BWU for a response. In a brief statement, the union said it was “busy throughout the day working on our hotel campaign, continuing to engage with workers to seek meaningful solutions for them”.
sheriabrathwaite@barbadostoday.bb
