PRESIDENT of the Bustamante Industrial Trade Union (BITU), Senator Kavan Gayle, says he fully supports a call from Sandals Resorts Chairman Gordon ‘Butch’ Stewart’s for the Government to require large hotels to establish pension schemes for their employees.

“I am in total agreement with the proposal for mandatory pension schemes in large hotels,” Senator Gayle told the Jamaica Observer yesterday. “When the minister (of Tourism) first raised the issue of a pension scheme in the industry, we indicated that we wanted to participate and we encouraged our members to support it,” Gayle said.

He said that, while there are challenges with the Spanish hotels which are members of hotel chains that do not have universal pension packages, the management of these hotels have accepted that, if the Government introduces a national pension scheme for the industry, they would participate.

He said that an example of how the problem could be addressed, in the interim, was how Gran Bahia Hotel had introduced a plan operated by Sagicor, with the hotel’s owners giving it assistance and support. “Workers in the hotel industry are clamouring for a pension scheme, and they want to contribute,” Gayle said.

“They are the most committed group of workers you can find in the industry, even when they have to move from job to job,” he said, suggesting that pension portability could resolve the issue of moving around. Stewart, who is also chairman of the Observer, told a news luncheon he hosted Tuesday for Government ministers, that pension schemes for any property with more than 100 bedrooms should be mandatory.

He made the suggestion against the background of the Cabinet’s recent approval for the establishment of a tourism workers’ pension scheme, which was highlighted by Tourism Minister Dr Wykeham McNeill at the luncheon. McNeill gave a January 2017 implementation date for the scheme, which will be funded with contributions from both employers and employees, beginning initially with the accommodations sub-sector