By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

The hotel union’s threatened Atlantis strike vote has been withdrawn, its president confirmed yesterday, adding that he was now focusing on securing a new industry-wide industrial deal.

Darrin Woods, the Bahamas Hotel, Catering and Allied Workers (BHCAWU) union’s leader, told Tribune Business that securing a new agreement with members of the Bahamas Hotel and Restaurant Employers Association (BHREA) would ease “a lot of the challenges we are facing now”.

He added that “life would be much easier” for the union’s 4,000-5,000 members with a recognised industrial agreement, as its terms will be incorporated into their individual employment contracts, and Mr Woods said the BHCAWU planned to submit its opening offer to hotel owners/employers before year-end 2018.

Atlantis and the wider Nassau/Paradise Island hotel industry will likely be breathing a sigh of relief that the prospect of industrial action over the key Christmas/New Year tourism season has been averted, with Mr Woods confirming that the issues prompting the threatened December 18 strike vote have now been resolved.

He added that the union and Atlantis had agreed “to revert” to the status quo that had existed between the two sides as at September 27, 2018, with the resort agreeing to abandon the “12-point” disciplinary system that had sparked the dispute.

Mr Woods said the hotel had also agreed not to implement the other issue that had divided the two sides, namely the new shift system for housekeepers, although both consented to further discussions as part of wider industrial agreement talks.

“I have just actually left the Department of Labour where we agreed to revert to the policies and procedures in effect before September 27, 2018,” the hotel union’s president told Tribune Business.

“They [Atlantis] will be following the provisions outlined in the industrial agreement, and any changes in policies they will revert to the status quo. We’re still talking through the shift system; they have yet to tell us how it was going to be effective, and weren’t able to explain or show us the rationale behind it.

“That is one we’re going to continue discussions on. We agreed not to implement it at this time, even if it has to be part of wider negotiations. We told them: Bring that into the negotiating package when you come to negotiate.”

As for the “12-point” disciplinary system, Mr Woods added: “They’ve agreed to abandon that and go back to what was happening before September 27, 2018.”

With these two issues resolved, the BHCAWU president confirmed there was no basis for the union to take a strike vote, as argued earlier this week by both Atlantis and John Pinder, the director of labour, and he will now write to Dion Foulkes, minister of labour, to formally confirm the poll’s withdrawal.

“It’s off,” Mr Woods told Tribune Business. “The genesis that caused us to look at a strike vote and all other issues, the parties are going to dismiss it. We’re satisfied. We believe that as long as we are acting in good faith, and both parties adhere to what we agreed to before, we’re going to be OK until we get into negotiations for a wider contract with the property.

“For me it’s not about getting what we want, or winning or losing. Persons tend to look at the size of the issue as opposed to the impact of the issue. It’s a fundamental for us: If you want something you negotiate it, not demand it, impose it or shove it down our throats and say: ‘Take this’.”

The hotel union’s initial stance in its dispute with Atlantis stemmed from concerns that the resort was arbitrarily seeking to impose changed working terms and conditions on some members without first negotiating these with itself - something it believed was contrary to, and in violation of, the industrial agreement with the BHREA.

The union’s response, which involved putting members at all Nassau/Paradise Island properties on a “work to rule”, was also motivated by a fear that other resorts would follow Atlantis’ lead with similar actions.

The BHCAWU’s last valid, recognised industrial agreement with the Association, whose member properties include the Four Seasons Ocean Club; the British Colonial Hilton; Melia Nassau Beach; and Lyford Cay Club, as well as Atlantis, expired in 2012-2013.

No replacement deal was negotiated because the hotel union’s former leadership failed to comply with the requirement to submit a new industrial agreement proposal at least 90 days before the existing deal expired. Since that time, both sides have behaved as if the previous expired agreement remains in place.

Mr Woods yesterday confirmed that his attention is now focused on securing a new industrial agreement as a priority, having spoken to the BHREA’s president, Russell Miller, yesterday in an effort to kickstart the process.

“We’re endeavouring to get them a proposal before the end of the year,” he told Tribune Business. “He and I [Mr Miller] spoke about it today. We’re working on a proposal, and are trying to have it wrapped up by the end of next week to have it sent. We want to commence negotiations in the first couple of weeks of the New Year.

“This is paramount. We believe all of what we’re facing is because we do not have an industrial agreement in place. We have a recognition agreement in place, which gives the union the ability to come in and bargain on behalf of the unit, but if we have a recognised industrial agreement that will be part of the individual contracts of employment.

“Life will be much easier because we will have something to guide what exactly is expected to happen.” Hotel union members have not seen an improvement in their salaries and/or benefits since the previous industrial agreement expired almost six years, and pressure for increases is thought to be growing given how VAT’s introduction (and increase) and inflation has impacted living standards and disposable income since then.