St. Maarten Private Eye

Did anyone notice Geno's 5 star review of the Westin restaurant Aura? He met a nice lady from Thailand, a French Canadian, a lady born in St. Kitts and a German.
80% local huh?

Dinner at Westin - 23rd February 2007

I read that restaurant review and laughed my head off. Roy's 80% local staff was just a shot to the moon! I can't wait for the truth to come out here.
Local workers are being harrassed with their 6 month contracts, they are constantly being reminded that if they slack off they have a 6 month contract.
I am waiting for the brave local employee to come forward and give account as to how many foreigners are working as waitresses, restaurant chefs, maitre de's, front desk, etc etc.
Why in the world does a St.Maarten hotel need a Thai waitress, are our own not good enough?
I will keep saying that WESTIN does not benefit SXM, it benefits themselves with tax holidays given by our politicians and it benefits Roys pocket with a brand new house paid for and rented by the WESTIN!Our Dawn Beach environment was killed off by this hotel and our workers are being exploited.

The lady from St. Kitts you referred to at the restaurant in Westin has been living in SXM for a long time and calls sxm her home and yes she has papers!

The 80% you refer to at Westin is simple: people either born here or with permanent residency, are they not local now? If they are not, I think you should tell them that we dont want them here anymore cause they will never be "local" and that their efforts for this country dont count! And oh, their children that were born here and have no where to go, they are not locals either, right?

This is the kind of thinking that is destroying this country. And YES, I do believe in power for the "locals".

Local according to me (combination of items, not necessarily one):

- born, here
- live & love, here
- make effort to improve, here
- want to die, here
- dont want to be anywhere else but, here
- dont run when the going gets tough from, here
- love the heart of the people from, here
- dont milk and destroy, here
- etc etc.

Maybe you should define the "local" according to you, cause it seems that there are several definitions today.

I like your definition of local and I subscribe to that same thinking myself. I wrote some time back that I thought there were two kinds of foreigners, the kind that love the island, invest themselves into it and make it their home, and those who are just passing through and making a buck. Whilst I understand and sympathise with groups like the SMNBF, their program, whilst including some immigrants, does seem to me to be along the lines of wanting to have first and second class citizens.
If the lady from St. Kitts has been here a long time and is a permanent resident then her's is a local job, I am sure there are others like her employed there. But the fact remains that several people have made descrete enquiries whilst visiting the resort, and it is fairly clear that the number of locals, including those like the lady from St. Kitts, is not 80%.
When you add the destruction and polution of the environment, the inconsideration and even outright disrespect towards the residents, the 6 month contracts and minimum wage jobs, then it would be a very long stretch to say Dawn Beach Westin has been and is good for the island. Let's not forget the tax holidays and the rights to own and run all businesses within the resort, then the conclusion is that It is good to itself and it's politician friends only.

And that's the crux isn't it. Our politicians and print media are enslaved to developers and business, first of all with the illusion that rapid construction and hotels is the same thing as progress, and secondly by money and favors.

When nature activists and residents went to Dawn Beach to look at and record what was going on, they faced threatening attitudes and they had their photographs taken too. What would be the reason behind that? Maybe to identify and single out troublemakers?

Columbia Sussex has passed the point where they could just change their attitude and become good corporate 'island' residents as defined yourself, for me they need to appologize too. We will continue to give their story full coverage here and who knows, perhaps one day we can make it all into an educational movie for Caribbean Politicians, about how not to pimp your island and people out to people like CS.

Flipper

he/she writer still has no excuse for the Thai waitress and her UK Chef boyfriend who just came to sxm for the job at WESTIN and got hired! many outsiders came to work for the WESTIN in employment positions that locals CAN do.
I again say, waitresses, waiters, bartenders, front desk, these are all jobs that LOCALS can do, the Sundial school has stage during their last 3 and 4 years for these positions, why bring in foreigners for this? And it is the same Lou Lou Laveist who grants the permits for these foreign workers. Laviest thinks he can blame the lt. Governor, but it is him who is responsible.