Tourism Minister Dionisio D’Aguilar last week summed up Thursday’s meeting with Bahamas Hotel Catering and Allied Workers Union executives as a good one; a good mechanism for him to hear first-hand the concerns.

“They seem very passionate, they seem very resolute, but they also seem to understand that this is a business and the business needs to operate profitably at the end of the day. 

“So I told them that the government’s position was not really to get involved,  other than to ask respectively that everybody explores every possible avenue before they think about engaging what I have often referred to as the nuclear option,” he said.    

Union President Darren Wood he said assured that negotiations will be in good faith.

“We have to get this right. We cannot afford at this stage, at this time to have any disruption in any of our major resort facilities and therefore blacken the good name and enormous good will that the Ministry of Tourism has built up marketing the destination. 

“We left in good spirits and we’ll see where the journey takes us,” the Tourism Minister said.  

The Union  has  complained  about an unsigned industrial agreement that proposes to eliminate the automatic 15 per cent gratuity, adjust workers holiday benefits and pay out Christmas bonuses in January  not  December.

Also at issue  is  the  claim  that ham and turkey are no longer a guarantee for  union members. Minister D’Aguilar said the issues are not non negotiable.