From Caribbean360

The Technical and Allied Workers Union (TAWU) Wednesday accused the British telecommunication company, LIME, of violating the island’s employment legislation.

ST. GEORGE’S, Grenada, Thursday December 5, 2013, CMC – The Technical and Allied Workers Union (TAWU) Wednesday accused the British telecommunication company, LIME, of violating the island’s employment legislation after it terminated the services of an unqualified number of workers under the guise that their posts were being made redundant.

TAWU president general, Chester Humphrey said that since last year, his union had informed the Ministry of Labour of the situation and that no meeting had been held with the incumbent ministers to resolve the issue. The workers will end their employment on December 13.

“These workers are being retrenched or made redundant by the company  but these same positions are really being outsourced to another company, so it means that the positions are not really becoming redundant as define the collective agreement nor the law,” said Humphrey, who described the company’s actions as “unfair and wrongful to workers”.

Humphrey said he disagreed with the position adopted by the company that redundancy was part of its strategy to deal with a high labour force.

“These jobs are not redundant, they are outsourcing them, they still exist and this we think is unfair and wrongful, these workers are being dismissed unfairly and wrongfully.

“The Employment Act also provide guidelines for dismissing a worker and if you look at it you will also realize that the company is also violating the law and that is why we need to discuss this matter with the Ministry of Labor,” said Humphrey, who formerly represented the Labor Movement in Parliament.

LME country manager, Angus Steele, did not provide much detail regarding the move to sever ties with the workers, and defended the decision to outsource work by the company, which he said had been going on since 2001.

““As such, it’s nothing new to us and nothing different to any international organization that continues to manage its cost to ensure it remains sustainable and in improving on the delivery of service to customers,” he said.

Recently, Jan Rammelg, chief executive officer of LIME’s northern Caribbean cluster, was quoted in a regional newspaper as saying that the telecommunication company would be reducing staff across the region and was looking to cut operating costs by as much as US$100 million

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Related story:

Barbados prime minister denies dismissing public workers

From Caribbean 360

Prime Minister Freundel Stuart said that his administration had always taken the position that, as far as possible, resorting to layoffs would be “a kind of last option when every other option has failed”.

BRIDGETOWN, Barbados, Thursday December 5, 2013, CMC – the Barbados government Wednesday denied reports that it had taken a decision to lay off public workers as the island deals with a sluggish economy.

Prime Minister Freundel Stuart said that his administration had always taken the position that, as far as possible, resorting to layoffs would be “a kind of last option when every other option has failed”.

Stuart told reporters that the issue was being discussed within the context of the state of the local economy, stressing that the government was in a 19-month programme to try to restore the economy and only three months had gone by.

“So, I am not in a position to say that there will be layoffs or that there will not be layoffs because the Cabinet has not taken any decision on that issue.

“But, we are looking, as we said we would do, at how the 19-month programme upon which we embarked is unfolding.

“And whatever action we need to take to ensure that Barbados remains stable and economically viable we will take, but not take whimsically or just capriciously, we (will) take it after careful study of what the objective circumstances are. I am not in a position to say anything else beyond that,” Stuart said.

The Prime Minister acknowledged that the country had some revenue challenges, which would obviously affect governments’ expenditure.

“I told the House of Assembly, I think last week, that of the revenues that Government earns, 54.3 per cent of those revenues are spent on wages and salaries. Now that percentage is not a frightening percentage if you are earning all of the revenue you need to pay wages and salaries comfortably.

“That percentage, though, becomes a challenge when your corporate tax revenues are down, when your income taxes are down, when your property taxes are challenged and, therefore, within the context of those realities, the monies spent on wages and salaries would have to be examined,” he added.

Stuart said that if the government was employing people,” it has to be able to afford to pay them”.

He reiterated that his government’s primary responsibility “is to ensure that the national [economic] structure is sound”, so people could feel safe.

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