Simpson Bay Resort workers to seek company bankruptcy

May 30, 2012 11:22 AM

PHILIPSBURG--Attorney representing WIFOL in its battles against the Simpson Bay Resort Maarten Le Poole said on Tuesday that four employees of the resort's management company have requested the bankruptcy of the company via the court. The case will be heard next week Wednesday.

Le Poole explained that the resort's management company SBRMC had yet to comply with the court verdict of April 2. With this move, he added, the employees hope to force the involvement of the trustees, who in turn could influence the resort to act and comply with the verdict.
 
He said thus far only those employees who had signed contracts with the company late last year and earlier this year had been paid, no one else. Le Poole said the resort should not expect to proceed without consequences of the court ruling.
 
His statements came a few days after Workers Institute for Organised Labour (WIFOL) President Theophilus Thompson said he had recognised the legal position of its employees by informing said employees in a meeting last week Wednesday that their status was of a permanent nature. However, he added that it was still strange that Simpson Bay Resort continued to ignore the court verdict.
 
Judge René van Veen ordered Simpson Bay Resort on April 2, 2012, to meet its obligations as an employer towards WIFOL members, as stipulated in the collective labour agreements (CLAs) for line personnel, supervisors, middle management and administrative personnel of the former Pelican Resort Club.
 
The judge ordered SBRMC to pay WIFOL members' salaries retroactively and according to the CLAs, and to (re)employ workers in their respective jobs until the moment it has been established irrevocably that SBRMC is no longer legally obligated to meet the stipulations in this verdict.
 
The judge in the Court of First Instance attached a penalty of US $5,000 per day in case of non-compliance, with a maximum of US $1 million. Simpson Bay Resort also was ordered to pay the union US $50,000 in damages, to be increased by statutory interest retroactive to December 17, 2010.

In this case Workers Institute for Organised Labour (WIFOL) is being represented by Maarten Le Poole and Wim van Sambeek of HBN Law. Simpson Bay Resort Management Company (SBRMC) is represented by attorney Jairo Bloem of Bloem & Associates.

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