ST MARY — Just over a month after the Carreras Group cancelled SuperClubs’ management contract at the upscale Sans Souci resort in St Mary, reports have surfaced of discontentment among some staff members at the hotel and at least one major tour operator giving the property the thumbs down.

“Something is amiss, definitely; that’s the impression I’m getting,” said Jackie Farese of Liberty Travel out of New Jersey.

“Unfortunately, you could have the most beautiful resort in the world, you could re-do everything here, if you don’t have the staff behind you it’s not going to be the same; and there are other places that I would recommend to my clients,” Farese told the Observer last Monday after spending the weekend at the resort.

She expressed dismay at the attitude of some staff members towards guests at the hotel. “It’s almost as if they are afraid to talk to people sometimes.”

It seemed, she added, that staff members were “walking on eggshells”.

Liberty Travel, which has been in business for over 50 years, is one of America’s leading travel agencies serving the Caribbean, Mexico and Europe, and sees Jamaica as a leading destination, sending thousands of high-class tourists to the island each year. The 146-room Sans Souci hotel has benefited from Liberty’s expertise over the years.

However, the hotel’s general manager, Pierre Battaglia, dismissed Farese’s comments.

“I don’t believe a single word she says,” Battaglia told the Observer, adding that guest comments ratings have been very good.

But Farese’s observations were spot-on according to several workers who spoke with the Observer, most on condition of anonymity. But one worker, who said she was unable to take the frustration any longer, decided to risk all.

Caren Clough, a receptionist and telephone operator employed to Sans Souci for nine-and-a-half years, related a tale of abject abuse at the hands of the resort’s management who, she claimed, are trying to frustrate her to the point of resignation.

On May 20, she said, she and a front office receptionist missed supper because of their heavy workload. The women approached, respectively, night manager, Douglas Bennett, and bar manager, Donovan Henry, about getting a meal from the buffet line.

But according to Clough, shortly after the request, Mark Loxley, the hotel manager, approached her in a rage and reprimanded her for asking for something to eat from the guest area.

Despite having another 80 minutes to go in her shift, she said, Loxley ordered her to leave the property within three minutes, after Bennett and Henry denied knowledge of any employee missing supper.

“I felt so bad and I didn’t even get the food,” said a distraught Clough.

She said she left the property and arising from the incident she was suspended for two weeks without pay and without being given a first warning as is customary, despite her near decade of service to the hotel.

“I had a clean record before this,” she said, close to tears.

Clough said upon returning to work last week she was reassigned to the housekeeping department, a move she sees as a demotion.

“I don’t deserve this,” she said adamantly.

She sees the transfer as another step in the move to fire her. She has no training in housekeeping, she said, and her inability to adequately perform in her new role would be just the ammunition management needs to fire her.

Clough said she was taking the matter to the Ministry of Labour, as the current staff association at the hotel was powerless to stop what she described as “the widescale abuse of workers’ rights”.

But on Saturday, Loxley denied being part of any plot to frustrate or fire her.

“The suspension was carried out by the human resource manager; I did not have any party to that at all,” Loxley told the Observer.

Quizzed as to why Clough was suspended because she asked for something to eat, Loxley replied: “That might have been the impression she has. But I just dealt with the dining issue and brought it to the attention of the human resource manager.”

But general manager Battaglia’s comments differed from those of Loxley’s.

“The consensus from the executive team was that she had to be corrected, she had to be re-evaluated, that was the consensus from the entire team. It was not a one person decision,” Battaglia said on Saturday, adding that Clough was transferred because of poor performance.

Another worker, who has given over five years’ service to the hotel, expressed outrage at the management’s action toward staff members.

“No matter what might happen from now on, I am not staying here,” she said.

She was one of several workers who levelled stinging charges on the management of the property, claiming workers were being frustrated to the extent where they would quit the job thus avoiding compensation for their years of service.

But Battaglia had a different version of events at the property.

“We are starting on a new adventure, so certain things have to be put in place and redesign our standards and everybody is aware of what the standards are and signed to them,” he said.

Battaglia also dismissed other charges levelled at the hotel’s management, among them that a houseman was suspended for two weeks without pay in May for failing to make eye contact with a manager on the property.

Over the past month, 15 workers have allegedly been suspended for 14-day periods, without pay, for matters considered trivial, one source said.

“You have no rights here,” he said, “and the way they are going now, they are going to get rid of three-quarters of the staff.”

Battaglia again disagreed.

“That (figure) is totally incorrect. I’m not keeping a record, but it (the number of suspensions) is not more than the usual in a hotel operation,” he said.

The hotel was said to be running at a low occupancy of about 40 per cent with most guests over last weekend being Jamaicans, paying a price tag of just over J$15,000 per night double occupancy. The occupancy level and room rates have dropped since Carreras repossessed the property.

A spokesman for Carreras said in March that the hotel would be put up for sale. However, this decision was later reversed, although the cigarette company has, over the past four years, been ridding itself of enterprises outside its core business.

In May 1999, it divested its Jamaica Biscuit Company to Caribbean Brands Ltd and late in 2001 closed down its printing arm, Graphics Arts Ltd. Carreras now operates the Cigarette Company of Jamaica that manufactures, imports and distributes cigarettes.