“The Bermuda government, through the Ministry’s of Finance and Labor, have worked with stakeholders to ensure that hotel owners meet obligations to their workers. 

It is unacceptable to leave workers in the dark until November 20 as most, if not all, have financial obligations to meet today. 

Government’s plan is to pay workers directly through a program designed to pay workers as soon as this week. Payments to them will be in the form of loans to employees equal to amounts due to them in redundancy, which will require repayment once sums are paid by GENCOM.”

Bermuda’s Minister of Finance Curtis Dickinson, JP MP, explained during a press conference on Monday, November 9, that this was the government’s plan to aid the many workers from the Fairmont Southampton Princess whose positions were made redundant due to the hotel’s temporary closure.

At a press conference the following day, however, Premier David Burt gave a more detailed and slightly different answer about how the government will tackle these payments when questioned by TNN.

“The government is not paying persons redundancies,” Burt explained. “[We are] providing a loan to those persons and working with all partners.”
The loan payback, according to the Premier, will not come from the laid off workers themselves, but rather from the development financing which was postponed due to the Coronavirus pandemic.

“In working with all parties involved, the union and the hotel, it is expected that upon that portion in time that those funds will revert back to Bermuda,” he said. “I don’t believe that after the government has paid loan funds to the employees that the company will then ask the employees to pay it back. I think that the funds will go directly from the hotel back to the government.”

TNN can reveal today, an unknown amount of staff at Fairmont Southampton received their redundancy pay checks. Speaking to a well placed source at the facility today indicated “Staff are extremely thankful for the Government intervention into this matter.”
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