HILTON LIFELINE

An­drea Perez-Sobers

Se­nior Re­porter

an­[email protected]

Hilton Trinidad work­ers have been giv­en a six-month re­prieve af­ter the Gov­ern­ment se­cured a new man­age­ment agree­ment that will keep the in­ter­na­tion­al ho­tel brand at the State-owned prop­er­ty while a longer-term so­lu­tion is de­vel­oped.

Land and Le­gal Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sad­dam Ho­sein, whose min­istry now has re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for Evolv­ing Tec­Knolo­gies and En­ter­prise De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed (e TecK), yes­ter­day said the agree­ment was one of sev­er­al press­ing is­sues the new ad­min­is­tra­tion had to ad­dress short­ly af­ter tak­ing of­fice.

“This has been a long-stand­ing is­sue that was left un­at­tend­ed by the for­mer ad­min­is­tra­tion, and this was one of the mat­ters that we had to set­tle in very short or­der when we came in­to gov­ern­ment,” Ho­sein said.

He wel­comed the de­ci­sion to re­tain Hilton at the La­dy Young Road, St Ann’s prop­er­ty, not­ing that the move should bring much-need­ed re­lief to em­ploy­ees.

“We are hap­py to keep our in­ter­na­tion­al brand of Hilton on our shores, and I think the work­ers al­so would breathe a sense of re­lief up­on hear­ing this very good news,” he said.

The agree­ment be­tween the State and Hilton brings an end, at least for now, to months of un­cer­tain­ty sur­round­ing the fu­ture of the 64-year-old ho­tel and the more than 300 em­ploy­ees who work there.

Un­der the arrange­ment, the Hilton Trinidad & Con­fer­ence Cen­tre will re­main Hilton-brand­ed and con­tin­ue op­er­at­ing un­der Hilton man­age­ment. The ho­tel re­mains State-owned through e TecK.

Al­so, dur­ing a me­dia con­fer­ence yes­ter­day, Ho­sein said on­ly 50 per cent of Hilton’s cur­rent room stock was us­able. He not­ed that Gov­ern­ment would have to source the funds to re­fur­bish the ho­tel.

He added that Gov­ern­ment was al­so fac­ing an un­us­able room stock sit­u­a­tion with the Mag­dale­na Grand Ho­tel in To­ba­go, which he said al­so had to be ad­dressed.

In a state­ment yes­ter­day, e TecK an­nounced that it had ac­quired all is­sued and out­stand­ing shares of Hilton In­ter­na­tion­al Trinidad Lim­it­ed un­der a Share Pur­chase Agree­ment. The com­pa­ny has since been re­named HotelTT As­set Man­age­ment Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed, a whol­ly owned sub­sidiary of e TecK that will hold the ho­tel as­set and as­so­ci­at­ed lands.

The new Ho­tel Man­age­ment Agree­ment will run for an ini­tial six months, with an op­tion to ex­tend for a fur­ther six months by mu­tu­al agree­ment. It re­places the pre­vi­ous land­lord-ten­ant arrange­ment be­tween e TecK and Hilton.

The deal al­so pro­vides im­me­di­ate job se­cu­ri­ty for work­ers, with ex­ist­ing du­ties, re­port­ing struc­tures, work sched­ules, salaries and ben­e­fits re­main­ing un­changed.

Hilton will con­tin­ue to man­age the prop­er­ty and over­see day-to-day op­er­a­tions un­der the new arrange­ment.

The an­nounce­ment fol­lows months of un­cer­tain­ty sur­round­ing the ho­tel, with work­ers pre­vi­ous­ly fac­ing ques­tions about their em­ploy­ment prospects as the pre­vi­ous agree­ment be­tween e TecK and Hilton ap­proached its end.

The Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Work­ers’ Union (CWU), which rep­re­sents Hilton em­ploy­ees, yes­ter­day wel­comed the de­vel­op­ment and the as­sur­ances pro­vid­ed by e TecK.

CWU Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al Joanne Ogeer de­scribed the an­nounce­ment as the clar­i­ty work­ers had been seek­ing af­ter months of un­cer­tain­ty.

“The Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Work­ers’ Union wel­comes this long-await­ed un­equiv­o­cal po­si­tion by e TecK in sus­tain­ing the jobs of the team mem­bers of the com­pa­ny and, by ex­ten­sion, the ser­vice to the cit­i­zens of Trinidad and To­ba­go. This brings a clo­sure of un­der­stand­able un­cer­tain­ty to the work­ers,” Ogeer told Guardian Me­dia.

Sig­nif­i­cant­ly, Ogeer said the trans­ac­tion would not re­sult in a break in em­ploy­ment, dis­rup­tion of ho­tel op­er­a­tions, re­duced terms and con­di­tions, or changes to the ex­ist­ing in­dus­tri­al-re­la­tions frame­work.

She said em­ploy­ees will con­tin­ue to re­ceive their ex­ist­ing salaries and ben­e­fits while main­tain­ing their cur­rent du­ties, work sched­ules, man­agers and re­port­ing arrange­ments. Ex­ist­ing col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing agree­ments and union rep­re­sen­ta­tion will al­so re­main in place.

Ogeer al­so made it clear that the union in­tends to hold both e TecK and Hilton to those com­mit­ments.

In a let­ter sent to work­ers and the union on Wednes­day, Hilton Trinidad Gen­er­al Man­ag­er Olivi­er Mau­maire sought to re­as­sure staff as ne­go­ti­a­tions with e TecK con­tin­ued.

Mau­maire said Hilton and e TecK re­mained en­gaged in ac­tive dis­cus­sions over the fu­ture of the ho­tel.

“I can con­firm that we re­main in ac­tive dis­cus­sions with e-TecK re­gard­ing the fu­ture of Hilton Trinidad & Con­fer­ence Cen­tre. While a fi­nal agree­ment has not yet been reached, we are en­cour­aged by the progress made to date,” he said.

He al­so ad­dressed con­cerns about ter­mi­na­tion and sev­er­ance, ex­plain­ing that those con­sid­er­a­tions would no longer ap­ply if the ne­go­ti­a­tions re­sult­ed in con­tin­ued op­er­a­tions.

“I would al­so like to re­as­sure you that, should these ne­go­ti­a­tions re­sult in the con­tin­u­a­tion of the ho­tel’s op­er­a­tions, any con­sid­er­a­tions re­lat­ed to ter­mi­na­tion of em­ploy­ment and sev­er­ance would no longer ap­ply. In that sce­nario, the ho­tel will con­tin­ue op­er­at­ing as usu­al past Sep­tem­ber 18, with busi­ness car­ried on in the nor­mal course.”

Mau­maire thanked em­ploy­ees for their pa­tience and pro­fes­sion­al­ism through­out the pe­ri­od of un­cer­tain­ty and said Hilton would con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing up­dates as in­for­ma­tion be­came avail­able.

The new man­age­ment agree­ment gives e TecK ad­di­tion­al time to as­sess the long-term fu­ture of the prop­er­ty while ad­vanc­ing pri­or­i­ty ren­o­va­tion works.

HotelTT As­set Man­age­ment Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed will serve as the as­set-hold­ing com­pa­ny for the ho­tel and its as­so­ci­at­ed lands, while Hilton will con­tin­ue man­ag­ing hos­pi­tal­i­ty op­er­a­tions.

The Gov­ern­ment al­so an­nounced that reser­va­tion sys­tems and book­ing chan­nels will re­open, al­low­ing lo­cal and in­ter­na­tion­al guests to make reser­va­tions once again.

For work­ers, the im­me­di­ate con­cern over whether the ho­tel would re­main open and their jobs pre­served has now been ad­dressed.

Sev­er­al em­ploy­ees con­tact­ed by Guardian Me­dia wel­comed the con­tin­u­a­tion of Hilton’s man­age­ment role but ex­pressed con­cern about what may hap­pen when the ini­tial term ex­pires. They said they hope the agree­ment will ul­ti­mate­ly be ex­tend­ed and pro­vide greater cer­tain­ty about the ho­tel’s fu­ture.

For many em­ploy­ees, con­tin­ued em­ploy­ment re­mains crit­i­cal as they man­age mort­gages, loans, house­hold ex­pens­es and oth­er fi­nan­cial oblig­a­tions.

The ho­tel’s fu­ture is al­so close­ly linked to the need for ma­jor cap­i­tal in­vest­ment.

Guardian Me­dia re­port­ed ex­clu­sive­ly in March that un­cer­tain­ty sur­round­ing the prop­er­ty had in­ten­si­fied as a long-de­layed up­grade pro­gramme es­ti­mat­ed at $400 mil­lion re­mained unim­ple­ment­ed while ne­go­ti­a­tions with Hilton con­tin­ued.

The need for sig­nif­i­cant in­vest­ment has been a re­cur­ring chal­lenge as the State-owned ho­tel seeks to re­main com­pet­i­tive with­in the re­gion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al hos­pi­tal­i­ty mar­ket.

While the new agree­ment pro­vides tem­po­rary sta­bil­i­ty, it does not re­solve the broad­er ques­tions sur­round­ing the prop­er­ty’s fu­ture. In­stead, it cre­ates an in­ter­im frame­work un­der which Hilton re­mains in place while e TecK eval­u­ates long-term op­tions.

The ho­tel’s pre­vi­ous op­er­at­ing struc­ture was gov­erned by a Lease Op­er­a­tor­ship Agree­ment signed be­tween e TecK and Hilton In­ter­na­tion­al Trinidad on Oc­to­ber 1, 2003. Un­der that arrange­ment, Hilton man­aged the prop­er­ty while own­er­ship and re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for ma­jor cap­i­tal ex­pen­di­ture re­mained with the State.

The orig­i­nal 20-year agree­ment ex­pired in 2023. A Deed of Vari­a­tion ob­tained by Guardian Me­dia showed that it was ex­tend­ed to Sep­tem­ber 30, 2024, with pro­vi­sions for a fur­ther short-term con­tin­u­a­tion.

That lease arrange­ment has now been for­mal­ly ter­mi­nat­ed through a Deed of Sur­ren­der.

Un­der the new struc­ture, HotelTT As­set Man­age­ment Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed will hold the ho­tel as­set, while Hilton con­tin­ues in its role as op­er­a­tor and man­ag­er of the prop­er­ty.