Editorial | Harmony Cove and unions

The good news is that the intended operator/manager of the proposed Harmony Cove leisure development in Trelawny plans to pay the highest wages in Jamaica’s hospitality industry when they start to hire staff.

That promise has been repeated a number of times in interviews by Christopher Anand, the managing partner of Nexus Luxury Collection, and at last week’s latest formal relaunch of the project, for which construction is expected to begin soon.

The worrisome bit is Mr Anand’s clear signal that Nexus Luxury Collection – and presumably its affiliate Tavistock Group – won’t be pleased if trade unions come sniffing around their operations, which raises questions of how they will respond if that happens, including respect for people’s right to join labour organisations. This requires clarification before it sets a negative, and perhaps wrong, perception of the partners in the project, even before it gets off the ground.

The situation also has even greater potential for an adverse interpretation, given the disputes that roiled the tourism sector late last year, when workers at several hotels, complaining of inadequate salaries, staged work stoppages and, in some cases, invited trade union representation.

The Government interceded, helping to winkle out more wages for employees. It was, however, not clear that the broader representational questions were ever fully, or adequately, resolved.

TAKEN INTO CONSIDERATION

Moreover, some of the matters of last November/December weren’t entirely about salaries. They included general working conditions and the attitude of managers towards workers, which Nexus has no doubt taken in consideration.

Two decades in the making, Harmony Cove is planned on 2,300 acres of government-controlled land, most of which was formerly owned by the family of the 19th century English poet Elizabeth Barrett-Browning (1806-1861).

In the project’s current iteration, the US$1 billion first phase will include a 26-storey, 1,000-room hotel and casino, plus an 18-hole golf course. It will be managed by Nexus Luxury Collection, a hospitality real estate development and management company controlled by American private investor Joe Lewis and his Tavistock Group, and including partners such as golfers Tiger Woods and Ernie Elms, and singer Justin Timberlake.

However, at last week’s ribbon cutting, Mr Anand caused eyebrows to raise with respect to the worker-representation model proposed for the development, which he said would be modelled off the company’s Albany operation in The Bahamas.

“We will be the best payers in hospitality because that’s how you get the best staff, and also they will have a voice at all times,” Mr Anand said.

That, on its face, is a good strategy in competing for workers in any market. And, as Mr Anand implied, workers are likely to have a greater sense of loyalty if they have a genuine voice at the workplace.

But Mr Anand also said: “We created our own unions in The Bahamas, where the departments within themselves represent themselves. They don’t need to pay anybody to ever talk to the ownership. We’re here; we run the property.”

This newspaper makes no judgement about the viability of the model, which, from a distance, appears to involve a series of departmental staff associations. Judging from Mr Anand’s remarks, the system works quite well in The Bahamas. Indeed, there were suggestions in some quarters for staff associations, rather than direct trade union representation, for Jamaica’s hotels during last year’s industry imbroglio.

PATERNALISTIC APPROACH

Mr Anand, however, would probably not be surprised if critics see, in his framing of his case, a paternalistic approach to management, or, as Keith Fletcher, of the National Workers Union (NWU) put it, an attempt at “union busting”.

While it is true that trade union membership has, for myriad reasons, sharply declined in Jamaica in recent decades, there is little doubt that there remains a strong affinity to trade unionism in the island. People cherish the ability to exercise their right to membership of labour organisations, or, if necessary, to utilise their services.

Moreover, Section 4 of Jamaica’s Labour Relations and Industrial Disputes Act (LRIDA), affords every worker “the right – (a) to be a member of such trade union as he may choose;

(b) to take part, at any appropriate time, in the activities of any trade union of which he is a member.”

It is also unlawful to prevent or deter a worker from exercising any of the rights conferred by the legislation, which, of course, includes the right to not join a trade union.

These rights are in concert with the constitutional guarantee of “freedom of peaceful assembly and association”.

Obviously, much will turn on Nexus’ approach to persuading its workers that its model of in-house unions is the best way of ensuring their interests are protected at the workplace, and the management’s control over these organisations.

The Gleaner has also voiced its support for the Harmony Cove project. But Mr Anand should clarify his statements, lest worrying questions over an important principle of industrial relations hover over the development.