Mount Gay Rum, the oldest existing brand of rum in the world, is going through a shaky buyout transition that has left 30 workers hanging for months without news about payment. When the Mount Gay Distillery in St. Lucy, Barbados shut down in September and gave termination notices in December, workers assumed the new parent company would take on the financial responsibilities left behind. Instead, it looks like the company has abandoned its responsibilities.
Winslow Waithe, a senior lab technician who was with the company for 20 years says, “Benefits that I am entitled to would be vacation payment, and payment in lieu of notice, which I haven’t received; and to go along with that, my pension as well, which I haven’t received, as well as severance.” This seems an especially ugly way for a major brand in an industry historically fraught with injustice to end its 350-year run. [Barbados Today]