The Barbados Hotel and Tourism Association (BHTA) will be meeting with the Barbados Workers’ Union (BWU) on Tuesday to thrash out contentious issues concerning hotel workers and their employers.
This was disclosed earlier today by the BHTA’s CEO Senator Rudy Grant during the association’s quarterly media briefing which held virtually.
Asked for the BHTA’s response to hotel workers’ complaints about unfair treatment and failure to receive expected pay, Grant said: “We wish to ensure that we collaborate with the workers’ representatives to make the environment one in which everyone is comfortable.
“Of course, in order to speak definitively to the issues we do have a responsibility to hear from all sides. We have to listen to our members, we have to listen to workers’ representatives and then we have to bring everybody together to have that dialogue and discussion so that we can determine how we go forward together and address the critical matters.”
However, BHTA chairman Geoffrey Roach pointed out next week’s meeting would be about “the third or fourth regular meeting we are going to have with the BWU and those meetings are scheduled for once a month”.
Recently, there has been an outcry from former hotel workers who say owners and operators are not paying their severance on the agreed time, or are referring them to the National Insurance Department, and this led to some public demonstrations. (GC)
