By NATARIO McKENZIE

Tribune Business Reporter

nmckenzie@tribunemedia.net

JUST over 100 employees of the Paradise Island Habour Resort received their severance package back in mid-December, a hotel union executive confirmed to Tribune Business yesterday.

Bahamas Hotel Catering & Allied Workers Union (BHCAWU) vice-president, Darren Woods, told Tribune Business that the union no longer had any affiliation with the resort property, as its members were paid out around the second week in December.

“The hotel has been sold and we no longer have an affiliation with them because they would have paid out all the employees there,” Mr Woods said.

“During the time they were talking about the severance of those persons they didn’t indicate that they were going to close at any time. They had a three-day period where the place was closed and then re-opened. Our members would have been severed, and then they would have reengaged whoever they wanted to reengage.”

Mr Woods added: “There were just over 100 persons employed there. They would have been paid out around the second week in December. They would have gotten any money owed to them, and whoever they decided to reengage, the company was at liberty to reengage because everyone would have received their severance.”

     The international hotel chain, Warwick International Hotels and Resorts, completed a $6.8 million deal late last year to purchase the Paradise Island Harbour Resort from Lehman Brothers Holdings and Driftwood Hospitality Management (via Gemwood Paradise Ltd), during an auction.

The 246-room all-inclusive resort had been marketed as “ideally positioned as the affordable, all-inclusive alternative to the adjacent high-rated, world-renowned Atlantis resort”.

Warwick International Hotels and Resorts is a collection of more than 50 4-star and 5-star hotels, resorts and spas, providing what it calls “affordable luxury” in locations in Europe, the US, Asia, Africa, Middle East, Bali, the Caribbean and the South Pacific. The hotel chain is expected to spend millions on substantial upgrades and renovations to the Paradise Island Harbour Resort property.