Tobago's Coco Reef workers: We are desperate

Coco Reef workers, who were temporarily laid off last month, say the resort’s management could at least have paid them for the four days they worked in August.

The resort, like other major hotels in Tobago, continues to experience the devastating effects of the covid19 pandemic..

With the new school term set to begin on September 6, the distressed workers told Newsday they had no money to buy books and school supplies for their children. They said their savings had been depleted and they are almost at the point of desperation.

“We are in dire straits. Imagine when we checked the bank on Wednesday, no salary was there,” one employee said.

She said the workers were called in last week to collect their temporary termination letters at the resort’s back gate in Crown Point. But she claimed the letters gave no details of whether or not they would be sent home with pay.

“That letter would have said that we were going on leave. But it did not say leave with or without pay. We not sure what leave it is. We were laid off and were hoping that it would be with pay. But there is nothing is specific in the letter.”

She argued if employees are being sent home, management is supposed to indicate whether they would be paid during their time away.

“That is not even clearly stated in the letter, and school opens on Monday.”

Another worker said the company’s officials had no conscience.

“Staff cannot get their vacation pay. We cannot get severance. At least the four days that we would have already worked in August, at least we expected by September 1 that salary would have been paid,” she said. “When we were asked to pick up the letter at the back gate, we expected the pay slip would have been accompanying the letter and that the salary would have been in the bank.”

“Staff must know what is happening. They have to treat the staff a little better than that. It is very, very discourteous.”

A man who has worked with Coco Reef for more than a decade said management has never been held to account for its actions.

“That is why they are behaving this way. Nobody holds them accountable, not the Government, not the stakeholders, nobody holds these foreign investors accountable. How much of the money they make, the foreign dollars, stays in this country? It is time that the THA (Tobago House of Assembly) and the Government get involved.”

In an August 5 release, Coco Reef owner and chairman John Jefferis said the current levels of staffing and employment at the resort could not continue as they have done during the covid19 pandemic.

He said Coco Reef’s reopening will be planned “as travel resumes, as vaccinations increase and as new hospitality initiatives and protocols are embraced and implemented.”

Jefferis said the resort is hoping to reopen in mid-November, but this will depend on several factors, including tourist arrivals and the rate of covid19 infections on the island.