Shal­iza Has­sanali

The icon­ic Bel Air In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port Ho­tel which once wel­comed roy­al­ty, politi­cians and celebri­ties has closed its doors af­ter 59 years in ex­is­tence, send­ing 40 of its per­ma­nent work­ers to the bread­line. Lo­cat­ed with­in close prox­im­i­ty of the Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port, the 56-room ho­tel host­ed a wel­come re­cep­tion for Hase­ly Craw­ford af­ter he won T&T's first Olympic gold medal in 1976, had a cour­tesy vis­it by Pope John Paul II and tem­porar­i­ly housed and fed Amer­i­can ac­tor Robert Mitchum, for­mer Cuban pres­i­dent Fi­del Cas­tro and Bol­ly­wood film star Biswa­jeet Chat­ter­ji. Last month, it shut down op­er­a­tions be­cause of in­sol­ven­cy. The clo­sure comes at a time when the Re­gent Star Ho­tel, Restau­rant and Bar, a 140-room and ex­ec­u­tive suite liv­ing ac­com­mo­da­tion for vis­i­tors and guests on Pi­ar­co Boule­vard, is ex­pect­ed to open its doors soon.

Staff at Bel Air, many of whom are over the age of 50, learnt of their fate on Au­gust 20 from the ho­tel's own­er and chair­man Robert Boos in a hasti­ly called meet­ing. The work­ers, whose ser­vice ranged up to ze­ro to 49 years, did not re­ceive let­ters from the ho­tel in­form­ing them of the com­pa­ny's in­sol­ven­cy and clo­sure. Nor were any ad­ver­tise­ments placed in the me­dia or a no­tice placed on the ho­tel's locked gate, in­form­ing the pub­lic that they are no longer con­duct­ing busi­ness. How­ev­er, an Au­gust 23 no­tice post­ed on the ho­tel's Web site www.be­lairair­portho­tel.com re­vealed that the ho­tel had been sus­pend­ed un­til fur­ther no­tice. Yes­ter­day, Boos, in a tele­phone in­ter­view said he could not make a state­ment.

$3.5 mil­lion in un­set­tled sev­er­ance pay­ments

The dev­as­tat­ing news of the ho­tel's sud­den clo­sure, the work­ers claimed, came like a thief in the night. They have asked the All Trinidad Sug­ar and Gen­er­al Work­ers Trade Union (ATS­GW­TU) to rep­re­sent them to ne­go­ti­ate the pay­ment of out­stand­ing wages to them. The union is al­so de­mand­ing that the ho­tel pay ap­prox­i­mate­ly $3.5 mil­lion in un­set­tled sev­er­ance pay­ments as well. To add in­sult to in­jury, the work­ers claimed that while Na­tion­al In­sur­ance was de­duct­ed from their salaries, thou­sands of dol­lars in con­tri­bu­tions were not paid to the Na­tion­al In­sur­ance Board (NIB) – which they re­cent­ly dis­cov­ered af­ter vis­it­ing the NIB of­fice.

The ATS­GW­TU is ex­pect­ed to hold its third meet­ing with Boos on Sep­tem­ber 23, with hopes that some­thing pos­i­tive comes out of their dis­cus­sions. Built on Air­port's Au­thor­i­ty's land, the ho­tel is pri­vate­ly owned. Bel Air was pop­u­lar for its Sat­ur­day night bar­be­cues, which at­tract­ed throngs of food lovers.

ABOVE: Some work­ers of Bel Air In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port Ho­tel who were put on the bread­line on Au­gust 20. Pho­tos: Jen­nifer Wat­son

No end of wor­ry for work­ers

Maduree Boodoo, 53, who worked in the laun­dry de­part­ment for 24 years said she was still reel­ing from the sud­den shut down. "The im­pact on the work­ers is break­ing my heart," said Boodoo, who spoke un­der an open air food court at the air­port's old ter­mi­nal build­ing in Pi­ar­co sur­round­ed by her for­mer col­leagues on Wednes­day. "Every­one is fight­ing tooth and nail to sur­vive. Some are bare­ly man­ag­ing," she con­tin­ued, try­ing hard to con­tain her emo­tions. Boodoo said de­spite re­ceiv­ing their last salary on June 15, the work­ers con­tin­ued to show up for work with the hope that they would have been paid. "But in­stead of re­ceiv­ing our pay for Ju­ly and Au­gust we were faced with the dis­turb­ing news on Au­gust 20 that we no longer had our jobs."

Laikram Roop­nar­ine, who served for 34 years as a front desk clerk, ad­mit­ted that he was at his wits end try­ing to pay his month­ly mort­gage of $1400. "I have been bor­row­ing mon­ey from fam­i­ly mem­bers for the past two months to pay my mort­gage. How long I can put up with this? I may very well end up on the streets the way things are go­ing," said Roop­nar­ine, a mem­ber of the ATS­GW­TU. 'Branch sec­re­tary of ATS­GW­TU, No­har Singh, a for­mer head wait­er, who gave 35 years of ded­i­cat­ed ser­vice said he owed a pri­vate sec­ondary school $4500 in tu­ition fees. "Al­ready they are threat­en­ing to throw out my daugh­ter from school. This is bring­ing no end of wor­ry and stress. You can't be­gin to un­der­stand what I am go­ing through. We were left with noth­ing to fall back on."

Cross­ing his fin­gers, Singh said dai­ly he prays to God to ease his fi­nan­cial bur­dens. "We are hop­ing to see some light at the end of this dark tun­nel we are in." De­spite search­ing high and low for a job, Singh said he was un­suc­cess­ful. "At my age who would want to hire me?" 'Savie Ram­cha­ran, 58, who worked as an ac­counts clerk for 32 years said she won­dered if her 750 NIS con­tri­bu­tions were paid, which would en­ti­tle her to a $2000 month­ly pen­sion from NIB up­on reach­ing age 60. Ram­cha­ran said apart from fac­ing the bread­line she had to bat­tle with an ail­ing heart. "I thought that I would have been en­joy­ing my twi­light years. I nev­er ex­pect­ed this to hap­pen. It's re­al­ly a sad sit­u­a­tion for the work­ers. It seems as our lives are falling apart."