Towers workers demanding their salaries

Daily Herald story

Never will understand SXM labor laws. They have not had any paying guests since Irma, yet, they were paid full salaries until the Covid situation, and since then have been paid half salaries, all for no work, now 3 years and 2 months, post Irma.....

Love these workers- but I'm afraid they're beating a dead horse.

Very sad indeed.

Mr. Ansari and his family along with Mr. Derby should feel ashamed of themselves. They have treated the employees terribly and so many of those same employees go all the way back to working at Mullet Bay Resort long before the Towers was built. They deserve better than what they’re getting. I bet Mr. Derby got his share all the while the workers got burned. I mentally moved on mentally shortly after Irma, feeling we’d gotten our money’s worth in memories and good times over thirty years, but so many timeshare owners got hosed by these people, too. Once again, where is the government?

Pat--obviously Ansari has been ripping off everyone in this deal and the government is useless. But I still can't get around the concept that these people have NOT WORKED AT ALL for over three years, and legally I guess they are still supposed to be paid..

I couldn't agree with you more Carol. Pat--what would you suggest they should get?? They have already been paid something since the hurricane with little to no work involved. As Carol said, there is no money coming in. There are many--like yourself--who have divested themselves of their timeshare and the obligation to pay their maintenance fees. I don't blame you in the least, but where is the money to pay these people supposed to come from. I can't think of any way to treat them any better than that has already been done.

I could very well not know about how they were mistreated, as I never owned there. Full pay from Sept. 2017 until Covid came around then half pay until Oct. I can't see any mistreatment in that. I'm glad I wasn't the person having to supply those salaries with nobody working. Good question as to where is the government--I think we all know the answer to that question..

I think you are missing the point - they - the employees - could have would have should have worked but due to the mismanagement of the repairs at the hands of the property owners, whose pockets are more than deep enough to pay them, there either was no insurance money because they were self-insuring by choice or there was and they misapplied it, taking care of their own issues rather than the issues of the timeshare property and it’s employees. Sound like a familiar story where these people are concerned?

This is like the Mullet Bay Resort and Casino fiasco but on steroids and most likely will ultimately be decided by the courts and in this case, I hope decided in favor of the employees. There were promises made and laws in place and they need to be complied with.

I’m done.

Pat--done or not--I get that there should have been insurance--absolutely--but who knows. The issue is not that the employees were or were not willing to work--I am certain that they were. I guess that it would be nice to know where those employees salaries came from the last two years (Sept 2017 to 2019) then half salary until this past Oct.--maybe from insurance that the owner had? I don't know. Don't know how many employees there were.

I have to tell you that I know where you are coming from as we owned at the Sapphire Beach Club for about 15 years--you want to talk about mistreatment. It wasn't the staff but the owners who were mistreated. I know how much you loved your weeks at the Towers--I've read about it for a lot of years now. You folks were very much mistreated as well. It seems that is the way with timeshare on the island. Thank You SXM Govt.

I didn't want to make you mad--I just feel that the towers employees got way more than employees almost anywhere else would get.

Pat--I get that, Ansari should have the place back open, and has ripped off the timeshare owners big time. But with regard to the employees, they haven't worked A SINGLE DAY in over three years and have been paid.

The problem is with Ennia which Mr. Ansary is a big Owner of . A lot of money has been blocked by the Central Bank.

Respectfully, they HAVE worked. Darby kept the place (and golf course) running as a hotel at first, then on a cash basis. People were staying there, maids were cleaning, maintenance kept the grounds up, and they did what they could with the building in disrepair. It is all very unsavory and I hope that the audit shows what Clarence was doing.

Clarence moved the golf course "office" to the front desk of the Towers. I personally witnessed the close out of the day's business where the staff handed him how many golfers and $$ had come in that day. I also have pictures of people with luggage checking in to the "hotel".

OK, obviously you know more about it than I do, so I assume at least some of them have been working. ...For which they were paid......

Deeply disagreeing with you. First they had to report according to the schedule they were given. 2NDLY somehow, someone had to keep the place maintened, going, and do the administration. 3rdly The place is not fully open due to circumstances that could, should have been taken care long ago. 4thly the place has been still generating an income. 5ly Some if not all of those employee went trough retraining program offered by the Government to better themselves and their skills. 6ly If you have a contract you have to honor your contract, not because that you just decide one night that you want to shut down your activity, which is still generating a profit, you send everybody home. 7ly besides honoring the contract you have to pay anyoutstandingamount, szv, pension funds, and cessantia. 8ly if you come to do businessinsxm you should be aware of thelabor laws and therefore if you sign a contract youmust respect it. It is very simple.

And that is my real problem, that the SXM laws say that a person can get paid indefinitely, even if they don't work. Ansari is the bad actor here, for sure. But the workers are not the ones getting screwed, the timeshare owners are. The workers--some of them--have worked, not nearly all of them. And they got paid for it, even if they didn't work.

It is not like you are asserting. There plenty of ways to get rid of employees rightfully and lawfully "iusta causae"

I have never employed anyone in SXM, as you do, but all I know is what I read in the papers, and it sure doesn't seem easy to me..

I know I said I was done but I agree so totally with you, Enzo. Sure the timeshare week owners have gotten burned by Mr. Derby and Ansari but the workers there really got hit. And contrary to public sentiment, they were working and their pay was cut by half, or so we were told. The manager stayed on and mismanaged everything, probably under the tutelage of the owners family and once again, the government did nothing.

Over the years I have tried to understand the problems happening here and it’s not as simple as people think.The entire Mullet Bay fiasco is simply that, a fiasco, be it the Towers or the original resort and the government has abetted the situation every inch of the way by not forcing the property owners (not talking about timeshare unit owners) to do the right and lawful thing. It’s not as cut and dried as so many would think. The workers did have contracts and they should have been lived up to by all parties involved.