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Sandals Barbados Withhold Stipend

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Sandals Butch Stewart
Sandals Butch Stewart

It has been brought to the attention of BU that Sandals Barbados has been training prospective employees for 10 weeks, 8 hours per day, 5 days a week WITHOUT paying them a stipend to pay bus fare or buy a sweet drink. BU understand they do get a free lunch! To rub salt in the wound there is no guarantee the prospective employees will be recruited when the training is completed.

The big question for the BU intelligentsia is whether this is legal under the laws of Barbados.

Sandals management personnel have been featured in the media this week preaching the successes of Sandals Barbados since the launch. Why must Barbadians always be made to lay prostrate before foreigners and taken advantage of.

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177 responses to “Sandals Barbados Withhold Stipend”

  1. Anthony Davis Avatar
    Anthony Davis

    That comes when one fawns over any individual, and gives him/her more than he/she deserves! We all knew what “Butch” Stewart did during the tenure of the BLP because they didn’t give him what he wanted, and this Government gives him a sweetheart deal as never seen before! Up to now the most of the other hotels have not been given the same deal as promised by the Minister of Finance! He destroyed the environment and not one word was said about it by anyone in this Government. He and his team can do whatever they like in Barbados!

  2. ac Avatar
    ac

    First of all there are not prospective any thing but trainees with a possibility of being hired for employment at sandals
    Secondly did they signed or agreed to the terms set out by Sandals during the job training process

  3. Sargeant Avatar
    Sargeant

    Sandals just taking the opportunity to get unpaid labour out of people who are so desperate for employment that they are willing to put up with this nonsense. Let me see 10 weeks, 8 hours per day and five days per week nice work (for Sandals that is). I would venture to say that by the end of two weeks they should have had a fair idea of those who are suitable and those who are unfit for their establishment.

    At the very least they should have been paid an honorarium covering basic expenses but Barbados wants so much to be considered first world so it has a first world problem. Sandals probably learned that from all those large Corporations who employed young people as “interns” and paid them chump change.

  4. Shaft Avatar
    Shaft

    As a fellow Jamaican, I could see Butch positioning himself into a position where the Barbados Government is held over a barrel..! I also see that Butch is building a small Island behind his hotel preventing locals from using the beach! Money talks and he has it..! Sadly, Barbados is ripe for the picking!!!

  5. David Avatar
    David

    @Caswell

    What does the Labour laws say about not paying people in training?

  6. Hamilton Hill Avatar
    Hamilton Hill

    Gross exploitation on the watch of those that sought to have us equate the passage of the employment rights act with that of the magna Carta or some such charter.Who would have thunk dat? Oh I don’t know. ..Perhaps everybody should have, given that stumbling /bumbling happens to be the hallmark of this administration .

  7. islandgal Avatar
    islandgal

    “WITHOUT paying them a stipend to pay bus fare or buy a sweet drink.”

    A SWEET DRINK???? I can understand getting a stipend for traveling expenses BUT A SWEET DRINK??? Why not a bottle of water? Too many of us have cultivated unhealthy habits and it shows that A SWEET DRINK is still considered a necessity.

    “To rub salt in the wound there is no guarantee the prospective employees will be recruited when the training is completed.”

    But skipper how many University Grads are guaranteed employment after studying? How many hotel school trainees are guaranteed jobs when finished training?? The best might be recruited but the rest that just passed will be ignored.

    When word gets around that Sandals is not paying a stipend only those who want some training will apply there to get it under their own steam.

  8. David Avatar
    David

    @islandgal

    It is turn of phrase a Bajan should understand.

  9. Bush Tea Avatar
    Bush Tea

    @ David
    They are not breaking any law if the students willingly agreed to the process. However this is a clear case of exploitation. Many employers exploit this ‘training’ scam in order to access free (slave) labour. Admittedly, there is some cost to providing ‘training’, but ANY respectable and well-meaning employer would provide a stipend in return for the sacrifice required of the student.

    Wunna still lucky that Butch ain’t CHARGING the students to come and learn to work at he place… ask Colonel Buggy (or John) how it used to opoerate back on the original plantations and factories….

    We are on our way back…..

  10. chad99999 Avatar
    chad99999

    Around the world, the hotel industry is a low wage employer known for exploitative labour practices. In North America, Mexicans and Filipinas are often victimized. In the Gulf states, its East Indians.
    The fastest way to deal with Butch is to get a well connected North American print or TV journalist to do an investigative piece on his business practices. Have it published or broadcast in New York and Toronto.

  11. Bush Tea Avatar
    Bush Tea

    @ Chad9999
    Boss… what are you saying about our journalists….
    Yuh mean NOT ONE can produce a story that merits international publication?
    ….even with such LARGE scale INTERNATIONAL scams like CLICO /CAHILL / and SANDALS…?

    Say it ain’t so Chad….. 🙂

  12. David Avatar
    David

    Is it not ironic we are discussing explotation by Sandals of young Barbadians and the Nation newspaper has Sandals bash on its front page?

  13. Artaxerxes Avatar
    Artaxerxes

    This Sandals situation reminds me of what I heard many older men referring to the days when their parents sent them to “Mr. So and So to learn trade.” Those who learnt carpentry, for example, said they worked with the carpenter and received “not one cent,” since learning the trade was paramount.

    I was told this practice was the norm in those days. However, it reminded me of the period between August 1 1834 and August 1, 1840 when the “Apprenticeship System” was introduced to basically prepare former slaves to assume the duties of freemen.

    Perhaps Butch is seeking to reintroduce that era into these times so that the apprentices could tell their children: “I went to Sandals to learn hotel.”

    Hahahahaha

  14. Well Well & Consequences Avatar
    Well Well & Consequences

    The Bushman…it’s not only so, it’s worse, unless you get real journalists from Europe or North America to expose these quasi-enslavers, journalists who have no fear of these half-assed Caribbean people who exploit and the equally half-assed leaders who enable the exploiters, nothing will happen.

    Just make sure when you do contact real journalists, it’s not some wannabe Bajan journalists who live in Europe or North America, they are frauds.

  15. Bernard Codrington. Avatar
    Bernard Codrington.

    Hind sight is 20/20 vision . Is it not? Barbados got burnt twice by Butch Stewart. What a pity for a country with 98% literacy. Education is definitely not wisdom.

  16. Bush Tea Avatar
    Bush Tea

    Wisdom??
    But Bernard we only talking about BASIC COMMON SENSE.

    If a man spent YEARS spitefully pissing on one of the VERY BEST BEACH RESOURCES anywhere in this world because he was not allowed to get his own selfish way….
    You will come back later and give him the damn kitchen sink to come and manage another valuable resource?

    Shiite man …. Up to Bushie that damn man would have been arrested any time his ass landed in Barbados …..far less GIVE him all kinda shiite…

    This Government is the most obnoxiously incompetent and unrepentantly retarded set of idiots on this Island since the Arawaks openly welcomed Columbus and his band of albino devils…..

  17. Nostradamus Avatar
    Nostradamus

    I stand to be corrected but didn’t Almond have a similar practise. I have a recollection of this being highlighted in the local print media several years ago.

  18. Bush Tea Avatar
    Bush Tea

    @ lawson …you would like this…

    Talking bout the Arawaks… 🙂
    Wunna realise that if there had been a few ingrunt Arawaks at the time, who (like some Africans are alleged to do now) had butchered Columbus and his other albino accomplices for their body parts…. the other Europeans would have just assumed that Columbus had dropped off the end of the flat Earth, and would have remained at home keeping their cold asses quiet …and not caused the total chaos that they have throughout the world…

    If only a few of the RIGHT Africans had preceded Columbus to the ‘West Indies’….
    LOL
    ha ha ha

  19. Al Capone Avatar
    Al Capone

    How come nobody asked Dr. Worrell how is it that Tourism reportedly increased by 14% at all levels yet our Foreign Reserves failed to show any associated INCREASE???? (incidentally, it DECREASED by a whopping $47 Million dollar.)

    ‘Scandals’ of course and their multi-latitude barrage of concessions, what else could see all that Forex diverted from our coffers.

    David Ellis you still say the questioned were not doctored?

  20. David Avatar
    David

    We are leaking forex. Recall the question posed by Adrian to Butch read the reservation out of country.

  21. Kevin Avatar
    Kevin

    Noone aint force the prospective employees to sign up. They making an investment in there future. Should the educational institutions reimburse me or pay me for attended classes? I signed up on my free will so that I can acquire more skills and make myself more marketable. Its good that they are getting lunch and a little stipend would be good as well. What’s the best practice in the region?

  22. David Avatar
    David

    Reputable organizations pay a stipend. If not legally bound it is a moral issue.

  23. Due Diligence Avatar
    Due Diligence

    See

    http://www.sandals.com/contact/worldwide/

    Worldwide Representative

    Unique Travel Corp.
    Calle Aquilino De Guardia, No. 8
    Panama, Republic of Panama

    Forex from Sandals/Beaches reservations go to UTC Affiliates, then to UTC bank accounts in Panama accounts

  24. Retribution-things that make me go hum! Avatar
    Retribution-things that make me go hum!

    Wow!!! I know someone from a different hotel that is going through this same “training scam” – difference is; they were not informed that they will be training for the position. The process is done similarly to a regular interview where you are told you have the job, when you step in your salary range changes from monthly to weekly (they NEVER explain the breakdown and how much it will be) and told that you are training – they NEVER give you a contract be it probationary or full until they decides that you are a “good fit” this can ran well up until the 6 months period.

    This is really happening!!

    Bajan workers are being exploited in many companies here and the authorities need to stop pussy footing and deal with these issues before the matter gets out of hand.

  25. Well Well & Consequences Avatar
    Well Well & Consequences

    Retribution. ..the authorities are the ones sellingvthem into that servitude.

  26. Crusoe Avatar
    Crusoe

    What woulda Barrow say??

    Lawdy, back full circle.

  27. lawson Avatar
    lawson

    BT not so shocking you may be right .. I have noticed right or left Africans seem to have a taste for white meat .

  28. Retribution-things that make me go hum! Avatar
    Retribution-things that make me go hum!

    David, reputable organizations does not mislead employees. Well well, the authorities want firing.

  29. Hants Avatar
    Hants

    “Professor Beckles said that the Caribbean is faced with a “chronic disease explosion where 60 per cent of all the Black people in the region over the age of 60 have type 2 diabetes, hypertension.

    He said while “slavery is over … we are now in the jet stream of it.

    “Imagine as you put, like in the case of Barbados…you import 600,000 people, you put them on an island for 200 years, you give them salt fish, salt pork every day, you brutalise them 24 hours a day, you sell their children, you rape their wives and you carry out this horrendous experiment of how to make money out of human degradation …at the end of that what do you expect.

    ‘The people are stressed out they cannot metabolise sugar and salt because that’s what they had,” he said, recalling that children of the working class used to go into the kitchen and pick up a handful of sugar and eat it.

    “So now we have a serious problem because the philosophy was eat what you grow. We grew sugar and we consumed it, now we have a diabetes explosion on the island. Barbados is now known for two things, beautiful tourism product, the amputation capital of the world.

    “Every day in Barbados someone loses a limb…because of the rampant explosion of diabetes. So we have the illiteracy, we have diabetes, we have no institutions, there are no museums, lovely museums on slavery in the Caribbean”.

    Sir Hillary said it would be difficult to say to a Caribbean government, struggling with debt and other problems to take five million pounds (One British Pound =US$1.42 cents) to build a museum to slavery when there are other pressing issues.

    “We know from the work we have done on hypertension that the hypertension drugs don’t work as well on West Indians as they do on the British. We have done comparative studies in Britain, West Africa and the Caribbean (and) it is fascinating to know that if you are English and you took a hypertension drug your body has a 95 per cent response…

    “If you are black from the Caribbean you have a 70 per cent response. So most Black folks in the Caribbean are in and out of different drugs because one it does not work, they get immune..(but) the most remarkable thing is that the West African has the same response as the English,” he said noting that the Caribbean is involved in a “highly expensive” research programme to try and reverse the situation.

    He said the pharmaceutical companies were not showing interest in the research because of the small size of the Caribbean.

    “So slavery is over and a new kind of slavery is taking place,” said Sir Hilary during his near two hour presentation.”

  30. Hants Avatar
    Hants

    “WITHOUT paying them a stipend to pay bus fare or buy a sweet drink.”BU understand they do get a free lunch!”

    These young people are learning first hand that capitalism has no morality.

  31. Hants Avatar
    Hants

    Bushie wrote “the most obnoxiously incompetent and unrepentantly retarded set of idiots”

    That is some serious whacking. lol

  32. Well Well & Consequences Avatar
    Well Well & Consequences

    Lawson…….and vice versa…lol

  33. Exclaimer Avatar
    Exclaimer

    If the mighty “Scandals” under the leadership of the fat white boy Stewart is viewed as a positive for our economy, then we Bajan Negroes are in serious difficulties.

    I noted how this organisation chose to celebrate their first year anniversary by sending out some of their Negro employees and others to prance and leap around masquerading as stereotyped Negro buffoons or entertainers.

    I saw this image last night and it rankled with me. Those poor staff members who had to participate in this fake celebration must have felt humiliated. Next year we will be celebrating our fifty years of independence. However it is clear to me that this declaration of independence was always a false dawn.

    Some of us are of the belief that our emancipation was gained way back in time. Sandals are living proof that those chains which bound our ancestor’s ankles were merely loosen over a very long period. Those in the know had other ideas; those same chains are now being tightened around our ankles – once more.

  34. Crusoe Avatar
    Crusoe

    Exclaimer January 29, 2016 at 7:51 PM #

    Very good post. I agree that those ‘exhibitions’ of ‘culture’ are degrading and unbecoming.

    Caribbean hotel entertainment needs to move past that to dance (as an art form),plays, poetry, original music.

  35. lawson Avatar
    lawson

    Well Well who are you trying to kid…If I had a dollar for every black woman that found me unattractive they would find me attractive

  36. Well Well & Consequences Avatar
    Well Well & Consequences

    Lol…Lawson, black females are special and one of a kind, it takes a special kinda white dude to win one, unless the female is feeling sympathy at the time…..and we are not talking prostitution either.

  37. lawson Avatar
    lawson

    Black females seem to rule the roost in Barbados ,and to that point a recent study found women who carry a little extra weight live longer than men who mention it.

  38. Exclaimer Avatar
    Exclaimer

    @ Crusoe,

    Thank you for your compliment.

  39. Well Well & Consequences Avatar
    Well Well & Consequences

    Lawson…the hardest thing is to know…particularly when you are bordering on getting into trouble…again, lol

  40. ac Avatar
    ac

    elaws: Employment Laws Assistance for Workers & Small Businesses – Fair Labor Standards Act Advisor

    Trainees

    The Supreme Court has held that the words “to suffer or permit to work,” as used in the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) to define “employ,” do not make all persons employees who, without any express or implied compensation agreement, work for their own advantage on the premises of another. Whether trainees or students are employees of an employer under the FLSA will depend upon all of the circumstances surrounding their activities on the premises of the employer. If all of the following criteria apply, the trainees or students are not employees within the meaning of the Act:

    The training, even though it includes actual operation of the facilities of the employer, is similar to that which would be given in a vocational school;
    The training is for the benefit of the trainees or students;
    The trainees or students do not displace regular employees, but work under close supervision;
    The employer that provides the training receives no immediate advantage from the activities of the trainees or students and, on occasion, his operations may even be impeded;
    The trainees or students are not necessarily entitled to a job at the conclusion of the training period; and
    The employer and the trainees or students understand that the trainees or students are not entitled to wages for the time spent in training.

    following those guidelines it should be sufficient to tell whether an employee is maliciously and willfully having an intent to deny a “trainee ” wages

  41. TheGazer Avatar
    TheGazer

    @Lawson
    2/2=100%. Waiting to see if you can go 4/4.
    Thanks for the chuckle.

  42. TheGazer Avatar
    TheGazer

    Thank God some of the apologists on BU was not around in 1833.

  43. TheGazer Avatar
    TheGazer

    We may be well educated and have a high literacy rate, but we are walking around with our eyes closed.

  44. lawson Avatar
    lawson

    It is fine to complain about Sandals but I don’t see this as a reason. In Ottawa to be an accredited bartender they give you a 300 hr course at Algonquin college in which you buy your own lunches and transport with no guarantee of a job when you complete the course and they charge you 2500 dollars to take the course. This goes for barista, chef firefighter or whatever course you sign up for. your case is no different except no-one is being charged money to get these skills, you just have to show up. even if sandals doesn’t hire them, they have learned skills from a successful hotel to offer another employer. This is an opportunity for people to get a job in the industry but there will always be detractors who have a career, don’t need a job, or think the white man is getting something for nothing. think of this as going to school for free not as an apprenticeship
    Well Well I always found it easy to get into trouble,

  45. David Avatar
    David

    @lawson

    Dress it up how you want, it is exploitation.

  46. ac Avatar
    ac

    Speckled fowl( David) can ypu use your intellect and reasoning exclusive of having to rely on the jaundice eye to define “exploitation ” and it usage as applied to a trainee and and employee not having wages

  47. Well Well & Consequences Avatar
    Well Well & Consequences

    People, employers particularly, always look for ways to exploit. I have done internships, while there was no lunch, there was alwsys a stipend and transportation costs. They always use any excuse, ya getting free skills, to get their free labor. It cannot hurt their bottomline to give a stipend.

  48. David Avatar
    David

    @Well Well

    A big part of our problem is that we live in a world where values built on materialistic underpinnings shape positions. It was never the Bajan way. In the past whether our companies recruited students in the Summer, hired part timers, interns and others, they were paid.

  49. ac Avatar
    ac

    look a moral code goes both ways! at the end of the work program business still have to evaluate whether the trainees are capable of full employment. also on the other side some of these trainees after full training change their minds and look for employment in other areas which is of cost negative to the employer and a trainee who might have benefited with sufficient skills to be employed by another company
    Yes there should be a moral code which drives both sides

  50. Well Well & Consequences Avatar
    Well Well & Consequences

    Apparently driving greed has changed all that David. I remembered many years ago PriceWaterHouseCooper used to practically beg inner city people to attend their programs to attain the necessary skills needed to move into the corporate environment. You did not necessarily get your job with PWC, but it made your skills attractive to the other corporate giants which in turn provided a pool of talented people to draw on, which in turn attracted high end investors to the city and state.

    These fly by nighters for employers in Barbados just look to be stealing labor, that is low rent.

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