SUPREME Court judge Basil Reid yesterday ordered the management of the Mariners Negril Beach Club to pay additional severance pay to approximately 42 ex-workers.

The judge promised to give his reasons for the decision, which reversed last year’s ruling by the Industrial Disputes Tribunal (IDT), in writing at a later date.

The workers, who were severed almost four years ago when late Parliamentarian Ken McNeil sold the 79-room hotel, which was then known as the Negril Beach Club, have been contending since that time that the new management had shortened their severance pay.

According to the workers, the money that the new managers proposed to pay them was far less than what was agreed on by the previous management and their representatives at the Bustamante Industrial Trade Union (BITU).

They took the matter to the IDT which ruled against them last year, triggering an application to the Supreme Court for orders of certiorari and mandamus to quash the IDT’s ruling and force the company to fulfil their demands.

On Wednesday, at the end of a two-day hearing at which lawyers representing the IDT and the company’s current managers argued that the agreement being touted by the workers was not legally enforceable, Justice Reid reserved his judgement.

Lawyers representing the new management, which is comprised of a number of interests including JLP senator, Brian Wallace, did not indicate an intention to appeal in court yesterday.

Sources close to the case say that their decision will be reserved until the judge’s written reasons are handed down.

However, Clayson Panton, the BITU’s representative who accompanied the workers to court, told the Observer that the cheapest thing for the company to do would be to obey Justice Reid’s order.

“Remember, they are picking up our legal costs for this action. If they had just paid the workers (as per our request) four years ago none of this would be happening now. I even hear the workers saying that they want interest on the money, so that is another thing we are going to have to look into,” he said.

The agreement on which the BITU rested its case promised, among other things, that workers with between six and 10 years’ service would get four weeks pay per annum.