Woods says union looking into payroll delay issue
NASSAU, BAHAMAS — Bahamas Hotel Catering and Allied Workers Union (BHCAWU) President Darrin Woods yesterday said the union was in talks with the government over its free COVID-testing initiative, which he described as an “economic relief” for its membership.
As part of the free COVID-19 testing pilot program on New Providence, rapid antigen tests will be offered for asymptomatic individuals while RT-PCR tests will be made available at South Beach Clinic for those exhibiting symptoms.
That automatically puts $17 back into their pay each week. That may not seem like a lot for persons outside the industry, but to have to pay that just to get to work and then multiply that by four or eight, it becomes a considerable expense.
– BHCAWU President Darrin Woods
The initiative fulfils a campaign pledge of the Davis administration.
“Now that the government has implemented its pilot program, we are in discussions with them to get our members to be a part of it,” said Woods.
“Some persons have gone on and participated. It’s just a matter of working out the logistics between the government system and the hotel’s system so they can accept it readily.
“That is being worked out right now. We welcome it.
“We also saw a note where they will increase the testing amount to 1,000. That is welcome news. That’s a pretty good number and we will see what will happen going forward.”
He added: “It’s an economic relief for our members. That automatically puts $17 back into their pay each week. That may not seem like a lot for persons outside the industry, but to have to pay that just to get to work and then multiply that by four or eight, it becomes a considerable expense.”
Last fall, the Atlantis resort announced that it would require all of its unvaccinated employees to pay for their own weekly rapid antigen test.
Woods also acknowledged that the union had been made aware that some employees at Atlantis had recently been affected by a payroll delay.
“I need to follow up on that. I had some people checking into that. We were made aware of it,” he said.
The resort, in a communication to staff last week, said system challenges had caused multiple delays in the processing of payroll, resulting in employees who do not bank with Scotiabank being informed they would not receive their deposit until today.
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