The contract would benefit about 6,000 workers at 11 different hotel properties.<\/P><\/p>\n
Both the Bahamas Hotel Catering and Allied Workers Union (BHCAWU) and the Bahama Hotel Employer’s Association (BHEA) on Monday remained tight-lipped regarding the new offer, but the Bahama Journal has learnt that it is much more favourable than the offer originally made.<\/P><\/p>\n
The Association had offered a 6.5 percent salary increase for workers over a five-year period and lump sum payments of between $300 and $500.<\/P><\/p>\n
But that has been upped, with specific improvements for each year of the contract.<\/P><\/p>\n
Holding a strike threat over the heads of Association members, union executives, meanwhile, have been pushing for a 12 percent salary increase over four years.<\/P><\/p>\n
Union General Secretary Leo Douglas has said that 12 percent is not much to ask for.<\/P><\/p>\n
Government officials are keeping their fingers crossed that union President Pat Bain and his executives will accept the offer.<\/P><\/p>\n
Mr. Bain had been locked in talks throughout the weekend with Prime Minister Perry Christie and Labour Minister Vincent Peet, who reportedly placed considerable pressure on him to accept the offer.<\/P><\/p>\n
But the union is now being asked to “bring something to the table.”<\/P><\/p>\n
The new contract would include a productivity clause, something Minister Peet has been pushing for every new agreement to have.<\/P><\/p>\n
Meetings with both sides continued Monday as the dispute appeared closer than ever before to reaching conclusion.<\/P><\/p>\n
But the government and the Association are fearful that the more militant factions of the hotel union may reject the new proposal.<\/P><\/p>\n
The government is anxious to bring the matter to an end fearing that the situation may be negatively impacting the tourism industry and the economy as hotels remain in limbo.<\/P><\/p>\n
State Minister for Finance James Smith has said that any expected gains in tourism this year could be threatened by an unstable industrial environment.<\/P><\/p>\n
His remarks came as the Washington Post, a leading newspaper in the United States, listed The Bahamas as the 2nd hottest destination to visit this year, just behind Athens, Greece and ahead of Botswana.<\/P><\/p>\n
The Post encouraged its readers to visit The Bahamas and the other nine destinations on the “Top Ten” list.<\/P><\/p>\n
The Bahama Journal<\/B><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
After saying that it had made its final offer to the Hotel Union, the BHEA over the weekend made a new offer in an attempt to bring to conclusion 16 months of negotiations for a new industrial contract.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","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":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-244768","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-headlines"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244768","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\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=244768"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244768\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=244768"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=244768"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=244768"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}