By Delvardo Emmanuel
Journal Staff Writer

An historic industrial agreement was signed between Restaurants Bahamas Limited (RBL),
operators of KFC Nassau, and the Bahamas Hotel Catering and Allied Workers Union
(BHCAWU) on Wednesday.
RBL General Manager Mario Cash expressed his excitement for achieving what they call a win-
win agreement.
“We’re thrilled to announce the successful negotiation and signing of the industrial agreement
between Bahamas Hotel Catering Housings and Borders Union,” Cash said.
“It is a great pleasure that we are here today to sign this historic agreement.”
While the value of the agreement was not disclosed, some workers will now reap a number of
benefits attached to this new five-year agreement.
President of BHCAWU Daron Woods said, “We are pleased to announce that benefits and
emoluments reached in this agreement is, as was said before, historic and we call it divine. They
include, but are not limited to increases by way of some 36 percent. Historic in that they will
receive increases in four out of the five years.
“We were able to have some salaries anomalies adjusted also for what we will now turn up as the
soon to be extinct grey tools. The eventual elimination of the two-tier custom, classes of workers,
we were able to introduce the train program that they initiated, and we were able to come up with
compensation for that.”
Woods added, “We also were able to, by way of the law, introduce what is called, all of the
benefits would be incorporated into their individual contracts of employment, which again, is
historic, and of course, a lump sum payment.”
The hotel union and its members have been without an industrial agreement with the Bahamas
Hotel and Restaurant Employers’ Association since the last one expired in 2015. The union chief
said this is something he and his union will ensure this delay moving forward.
“I can go on record as saying that this union, under my administration and the former
administration, was proactive in sending the proposal out,” Woods said.
“Our proposal went out, way prior to the expiration of the contract, but some things that I wish
not to get into at this momentous occasion that has brought us to where we are, but definitely that
will not happen anymore, whether, whoever sits as the president, because the template is already
in place for some things to happen, prior to the expiration of the contract.”