A Trinidadian company has won the contract to provide transportation services for the Marriott Hotel and some local taxi drivers who are being let go are crying foul.
“How can we allow a foreign company to come and take bread from locals for a job that we can do? What is the sense in having local content laws when taxi work and all going to a foreign company? This is a slap in everyone’s face,” one of the affected taxi drivers told Stabroek News yesterday.
“Imagine a Trinidad company get the contract and they now turn back and hiring we who been there. And they ain’t want you to have your own car, they want the car and will pay you a salary. You ever hear such nonsense?” he questioned.
Affected taxi drivers all spoke with this newspaper on condition of anonymity, citing fears of victimisation.
However, Marriott Hotel executives say that the contract for the service was opened to public bidding after the former Guyanese contractor notified them that he was no longer interested and the Trinidadian company that bid met the criteria they were looking.
The Marriott Hotel says that the Trinidadian company has also assured that it will employ some of the former drivers but under a different arrangement.
“We have been working with the taxi drivers .They associate themselves with a taxi [operator] and have been providing a service for a few years. This company has informed us they are giving the hotel notice they will no longer be providing that service. This triggered us to start looking for alternatives,” General Manager of the Marriott Hotel Eduardo Reple told Stabroek News when contacted.
Reple explained that it was not the Marriott Hotel which asked the service provider to leave but that it was the man that represented the workers who informed that he was no longer interested in continuing to do the job.
“It is not Marriott informing them to leave Marriott. It was them who informed that they are leaving,” he stressed.
But two of the current drivers told this newspaper that while the, the decision by the local operator to pull out was made because when his contract came to an end, a request for changes in the terms made by the Marriott was not sustainable.
“The percentage arrangement that had to go to them was too much. It could no longer be sustained and before all of that headache again, it was best to just give it up. If someone else wants the headache, they are free to go ahead,” one driver explained.
Transparent
Marriott Hotel’s General Manager said that he wanted it to be made clear that the process to select the Trinidadian company was transparent as management put out a public tender and did due diligence on companies that bid.
“We did due diligence, did tendering, did everything and that is a company we signed the agreement with; the company is from Trinidad,” he said. The Trinidadian company was not named by either the drivers or the hotel’s management.
Reple said that he did not want the drivers, which the company has had a relationship with for years, to be without work so he intervened and asked the new company to look into employing them.
But he pointed out that not all of the drivers would meet the requirements of the new company as changes had been also made to operations.
“I met with the drivers. First I met with the company and I asked them to interview the drivers because they have been servicing for a few years. There was a relationship we developed. They made interviews but I am not sure who decided to work with the company because the model is different.
“The existing [arrangement] is each driver has their own car. This new company has the cars and they will hire the divers; a fixed number of drivers,” he explained pointing out that work will be on a rotational system.
He distanced himself from any direct linkages with the company, saying he was only “the bridge” between the two sides.
“I contacted the company that is going to be serving us and I put the two together. They have done interviews to be able to retain the existing group. They hired some and some they didn’t,” he explained.
Thanking the former drivers for their services over the years, especially during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, Reple said that the hotel does not want any animosity as it is aware that “they have done a good job over the past years” and were “very critical for us during COVID when we needed the cars and didn’t have.”
But the drivers believe the hotel was wrong in selecting a foreign company over local operators.
One driver said that some of the drivers feel cheated because they only this year invested in upgrading their vehicles to cater for a wider range of customer needs.
“I have a problem and I feel violated that a foreign company can come and do this on our home turf. We can’t get these jobs at no hotel in Trinidad or islands with tourism you know. I really don’t understand the eye pass sometimes. This isn’t engineering, this isn’t oil expert work, this isn’t mathematician… this is a safety and skill job that Guyanese here have been doing without accident and incidents. We taking people safely all the time so what is new?” an emotional driver questioned.
“We had a chance here to make a business for local people. Some of these men buy SUVs, full Trail and all these things. They could have reasoned with us or they could have taken another local. We have no problem with another local company. All the other hotels employ locals for their transportation services. Look at the Princess Hotel. Look at the Pegasus Hotel. What I am afraid of is if this now starts as the new normal where all these hotels will change too. Like they plan to squeeze us out,” another driver said.
The drivers said that they are not sure which agency to formally complain to and called for government to intervene. “It should never had to come to this because a foreign company bidding should never be and that needs to be addressed. I will fight for my country and my fellow workers because this just is not right,” one taxi driver said.
