Bellevue workers paid in full

After several days of financial stress, approximately thirty employees of the now defunct Bellevue Hotel have received their overdue pay as well as all other funds due for severance, holiday and lack of notice. The payments were made on Saturday after hotel operator Roger Dinger agreed to pay close to forty-nine thousand dollars owed to employees after the property’s owner, the Belize Social Security Board, shut the operation down for non-payment of rent. One former worker told News 5 that although they no longer have jobs, they at least received what was due to them under the law.

Anna McKay, Former Employee, Bellevue Hotel

“We were called on Saturday for an emergency meeting and when we got here we were told by Mrs. Garcia that we will all get our pay cheques and that was done. All the employees were paid off and everybody went home peacefully and smiling.”

When the hotel’s doors were padlocked on Wednesday, Dinger claimed that the operation was bankrupt and there were no funds to pay the workers. According to the Labour Department an accommodation was reached under which S.S.B. agreed to loan the forty-nine thousand dollars to Dinger in order to make the payments. It is believed that negotiations are ongoing to see if there is a way to bring the hotel back to operation.