At his monthly press conference Thursday, Hon. Mark Brantley, Premier of Nevis, reassured workers affected by the temporary closure of the Four Seasons Resort hotel they will be returning to work shortly.
“The general manager this morning confirmed that workers will be back to work on Sept. 16 as scheduled, and so today is now the 5th and so we figure that in 11 days the long hard summer would be over, and that workers would be going back to work at the Four Seasons Resort as scheduled,” he said following a telephone conversation earlier in the day with the resort’s General Manager Mr. Gonzalo Gëlman Ros.
“He indicates that the resort opens on Oct. 1, and that while they will still have some other work to do…they would be receiving their first guests by Oct. 4, and I believe that is good news for Nevis… I am grateful for that news and to God be the glory. I trust and hope that this long difficult summer is now really and truly over for those workers at the Four Seasons,” he said.
Brantley explained that the resort’s general manager said that workers are returning to work in September to facilitate a massive retraining exercise.
“He has advised that they are going to do that in two tranches, one starting on Sept.16 and the other starting sometime I believe around the 23rd or thereabout of September,” he said.
The Premier, who is also the Minister of Finance in the Nevis Island Administration (NIA), said he is grateful for the news and is hopeful the financially difficult summer for the more than 300 workers would soon be over.
During that period the resort paid workers 25 percent of their salaries. The resort’s homeowners chipped in US$150,000 and the NIA EC$368,000 to assist the workers while they were out of work.
