{"id":20942,"date":"2012-04-25T12:05:59","date_gmt":"2012-04-25T16:05:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/?p=20942"},"modified":"2012-04-25T12:08:11","modified_gmt":"2012-04-25T16:08:11","slug":"controversy-over-resort-hiring-foreign-staff","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/2012\/04\/controversy-over-resort-hiring-foreign-staff","title":{"rendered":"Controversy Over Resort Hiring Foreign Staff"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
Gordon 'Butch' Stewart <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

PROVIDENCIALES, Turks and Caicos Islands — Following a recent article in the Jamaica Observer, which is owned by Gordon \u2018Butch\u2019 Stewart, who also owns the Sandals\/Beaches resorts group, claiming that a total of 500 Jamaican workers are to be employed by the Beaches Resort in the Turks and Caicos Islands (TCI), the disclosure of a previously secret development agreement has generated considerable controversy locally.<\/p>\n

The article reported that the Beaches personnel department is recruiting a minimum of 100 additional Jamaican nationals, who the article claimed will be transferred to the TCI to join the existing Beaches staff here, which already consists of a majority of Jamaican nationals on work permits.<\/p>\n

Beaches human resources director Monique McClean-Vaughn told the Jamaica Observer that there are also plans for a further 50 Jamaican workers to be added in the near future and, when the additional 50 are recruited, it will bring the number of Jamaicans working at Beaches Turks and Caicos Resorts to 503.<\/p>\n

McClean-Vaughn said a team of eight recruiters from the TCI will arrive in Jamaica on April 29 to begin four days of interviews, which they hope will culminate in the first batch of 100 workers arriving in the TCI within the next six to eight weeks.<\/p>\n

\"\"According to the Observer, the Jamaicans will fill vacancies as room technicians in the engineering department; kitchen line cooks; concierge agent; butlers; security officers; bartenders in the pool and beach areas; waiters and waitresses in the buffet and a-la-carte restaurants; room attendants and housemen<\/p>\n

The Observer article prompted an immediate and vigorous reaction in the TCI, where local unemployment has become a serious concern, exacerbated by recent voluntary redundancies of hundreds of civil servants as part of a \u201cright-sizing\u201d of the public service by the interim administration.<\/p>\n

At the same time, the disclosure of a hitherto unknown \u201cdevelopment agreement\u201d signed in 2006 between the TCI government and the Sandals Group has added fuel to the flames because it purports to exempt Sandals\/Beaches from certain provisions of the Immigration Ordinance regarding the grant of work permits for foreign workers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sandals\/Beaches owner Butch Stewart created controversy when he announced that he would be hiring 150 Jamaicans to work at his resort in the Turks and Caicos.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_10223285771444175_51037792744":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[153,100,72,288],"class_list":["post-20942","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-business","tag-business-2","tag-caribbean-2","tag-employment","tag-resort"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20942","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20942"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20942\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20942"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20942"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20942"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}