By EARYEL BOWLEG

Tribune Staff Reporter

ebowleg@tribunemedia.net

SCORES of Atlantis employees and members of an activist group chanted “Minnis got to go” as they protested near Parliament Square and marched for workers to receive their severance pay from the resort.

Police reported one protester was arrested for alleged idle assembly and inciting a riot. The group was expected to march over the Sidney Poitier Bridge to Paradise Island yesterday morning, but were blocked. They then tried to take their protest to the House of Assembly.

At one point, the group was lined up near a bank on Bay and Parliament Streets behind barricades, as police tried to direct the crowd away.

Operation Sovereign Bahamas managing director Adrian Francis, whose group organised the protest, had told The Tribune earlier that they were stopped from going over the bridge and had unsuccessfully attempted to go to Parliament Square on their first attempt. So, the group gathered at a park across from the bridge. Police were present watching them and two police buses were at the scene.

He said Atlantis workers wanted their money now.

“Atlantis is not going to open before March of next year,” he predicted. “Nobody is going to travel during the (US) presidential election. All the winter travel has already been planned and gone. The Bahamas is a (COVID-19) hotspot - nobody’s coming here right now. So these people are gonna be out of a job for a year to wait on the government to tell them what to do? Man, the devil is a liar.”

After being denied the right to walk to Parliament Square, the protestors got in cars and drove there instead, hoping to speak with Prime Minister Dr Hubert Minnis.

“We were at Parliament and they rushed Dr Minnis out of Parliament and they rushed him in his car,” Mr Francis said.

Commissioner of Police Paul Rolle said police are not trying to stifle protests, but said that demonstrators needed a specific permit or approval to protest at Parliament Square.

He said the process required permission from the Speaker of the House of Assembly if protestors want to go into Parliament Square, and the Speaker would send him a note advising he had given permission. He added: “If they want to go in Rawson Square, you need permission from the secretary of the Cabinet.”

Meanwhile, many Atlantis workers voiced their frustration over not getting their severance pay - particularly those who have been employees at the mega-resort for years. One 60-year-old employee explained she had been working for the hotel for 30 years. Now, the employee said she has been sleeping inside her car for four to five months and her children are hungry.

Another worker, Elizabeth Saunders, 43, said the workers are “tired” and have had “enough”. She has been at the hotel for the past 13 years.

“It’s been a fight. They don’t pay us our money and we need it now. I have five children to feed and I need my money.

“I had enough. You work and it’s like you can’t see your money...they give us the run around, we tired we had enough.”

Dave Beckford has been an employee for 25 years as a gardener in the landscaping department. Through the “grace of God” he has been getting by, but most workers are only getting $150 a week in assistance from the government.

“The money they gave us is our health and welfare fund and the monies that we’ve been getting from the government. How do you expect us to live off $150?

“The law is clear after 12 weeks, three months, the Act says that the employer must return the employee back to work or pay them off but what the government did is meet with the hotel owners and then suspend section 28 C. So basically, you are taking my rights away.”

The government has suspended the Employment Act provisions that mandate employers must pay full severance/redundancy to workers who have been furloughed, or sent home, after 90 days/13 weeks or otherwise recall them to work.

This provision is suspended until 30 days after the government’s COVID-19 emergency powers orders —currently in effect until the end of October—cease.

A room attendant at The Reef said she is sick and tired of the double talk. She has now been out of a job for seven and a half months. Her husband also works at Atlantis and he is out of a job as well.

“All I want is what is mines. It’s my money and I want it now,” she said.

“They just keep promising us that they’re gonna do something for us, but are not getting anything. The $150 every two weeks is not going to kick it.”

She planned to use the severance pay to start her own small business as she vowed she is finished with Atlantis.

Atlantis temporarily laid off staff in March for an initial period of four weeks in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. However the resort’s closure has been protracted due to skyrocketing cases of the virus in The Bahamas and the United States, the country’s main tourist market.