By TANYA SMITH-CARTWRIGHT

tsmith-cartwright@tribunemedia.net

AFTER about 30 staff members of the Hilton hotel hit the unemployment line, the country's director of labour said it is unfortunate that the hotel did not at least give the economy a chance to rebound before letting workers go.

Tribune Business reported this week that the British Colonial Hilton blamed the "unprecedented" COVID-19 fall-out for forcing a 15 percent cut in its workforce, which represents about 30-45 workers, including management.

"I think it's 30 persons in total have been laid off from the Hilton," Director of Labour John Pinder said. "I think it's unfortunate that, even though the government has extended the grace period for the employers until the end of July. I thought they might have been in a position to at least give the economy an opportunity to rebound before they made their final decision. I guess they saw no bookings so they had to make their decision."

One of the many laid off by the Hilton is a manager at the hotel who said he was quite shocked when he received the news, as he had just taken an online COVID-19 readiness course to return to work.

"My boss told me to come in at 1pm and discuss how the company would go moving forward," said the former manager. "I was fine with it and not thinking negatively even though staff reached out to me fearing the redundancies. In my mind my boss would not have told me to take the course if they were going to lay me off.

"I was confident that I would not have been in that number until the morning of the meeting I saw a newspaper article that confirmed the hotel was laying off staff. I asked my boss if I was being called in to be laid off and she came clean and told me yes. She told me to come in and bring the company's laptop and phone."

Giving The Tribune a timeline of how events came together, the former manager said his last day at work was March 16 when employees were called into a meeting and they were told that due to the COVID-19 pandemic and tourism slowdown, they would work on a two week rotation - two weeks on and two weeks off. A letter, saying the same, was issued to staff after the meeting.

"I opted to take two weeks leave and then when it was time for me to come to work for two weeks, my boss said not to come back yet," the laid off manager said. "I was thrown off as I was on rotation. So they advised me they would add eight weeks, making it ten weeks I would have been home. During this period we were told to get unemployment from NIB. We started getting that six weeks after being home."

Unlike other hotels, the manager said the Hilton never closed its doors. He said staff were cherry picked to cater to guests that were there and when those guests left, staff members of the Public Hospitals Authority were long term guests of the Hilton.

"We were trying to understand if the hotel was still open why they were not doing two weeks rotation," the laid off manager continued. "We had to rely solely on NIB. I am living on savings, but a lot of people had no savings to look for. So ten weeks came and the manager said, so sorry about this but you have to stay home for three weeks more. She told me to take the tourism COVID course online. I should have returned on the 16th of June.

"If the Hilton was opened all this time and functioning I do believe they used this time to get rid of people who they had planned to. They are cherry picking and showing favouritism."

He took issue with the fact that his former boss is a foreigner on a work permit who "never stopped working through the entire pandemic while Bahamians were at home." He added: "Whereas those Bahamians who got to stay had to work two days, she was working every day. And, the payroll mistress, she never stopped working during the COVID lockdown but they made her job redundant the same day I was laid off. That's unfair."

There are allegations some foreign workers with expired work permits are still engaged at the hotel.

Asked about this, Mr Pinder said the Immigration Department needs to investigate the claims.

"So allegations are that there were some work permit holders whose permits might have expired and they were still at the hotel," Mr Pinder continued. "That is an issue for immigration. The borders were closed and maybe they could not leave and that's why they were at the hotel, still performing duties, but immigration needs to investigate that to see if there weren't violations as it relates to the Immigration Act or the order that was handed down by the Prime Minister as it relates to the curfew and pandemic."

Mr Pinder noted that there are opportunities out there for those laid off to get a jump on.

"There are some jobs available in some of the new operators that are opening hotels," he noted. "Maybe these persons can apply to see if they can get jobs. Maybe they stand a chance to qualify for those positions. So while it's unfortunate that the layoffs happened, simultaneously they get an opportunity to try to apply now while those positions are available. I would encourage them to try to do that."

He said employers always hold on to their best employees and that employees should make it very difficult for employers to want to cut ties with them.