By AVA TURNQUEST

Tribune Staff Reporter

aturnquest@tribunemedia.net

REPRESENTATIVES of line-staff at the Sandals Royal Bahamian resort met last night to decide when its membership will initiate strike action, union chief Obie Ferguson said yesterday.

Mr Ferguson, lead negotiator for the Bahamas Hotel, Maintenance and Allied Workers Union (BHMAWU), said the union’s executive body plans to act on it’s strike certificate as negotiations for a new industrial agreement remain stagnant.

“[Management] has not met with the union since we got the strike certificate. The certificate is clear what we intend to do, withdraw labour,” said Mr Ferguson, also president of the Trade Union Congress (TUC).

“Sandals has refused to meet with us.”

The BHMAWU, comprised of some 500 of the resort’s non-managerial staff, has been lobbying to negotiate an industrial agreement with Sandals management for more than a year.

Strike action was approved for the union on May 30, following a unanimous strike vote of 267 workers. According to Mr Ferguson, there was one spoilt ballot.

Back in May, Sandals challenged not only the validity, but the number of votes the union said it polled in the strike vote.

The resort also said there was no oversight of the polling exercise by Ministry of Labour personnel, that it wasn’t conducted fairly, and that workers appeared to have been “coerced”.

Last night, resort management did not respond to comment up to press time.