Caribbean360: LIAT rescinds severance letters

LIAT rescinds severance letters
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Chris Hoyos on 10/06/2011 10:53:00
 
ST. JOHN’S, Antigua, Friday June 10, 2011 – LIAT has possibly averted region
wide industrial action by rescinding severance letters to workers at its City
Ticketing Offices (CTOs).
Talks between the airline’s management and unions representing LIAT workers on
the protocol for the closures are therefore set to go ahead today, according to
Chairman of the Consultative Council of Trade Unions within the LIAT system
Senator Chester Humphreys.
The withdrawal of the letters had been a condition set by the unions to resume
talks. The workers’ bargaining agents had also warned that if LIAT did not
rescind the correspondence and went ahead with the June 30 closures, there would
be industrial action involving LIAT workers all across the region.
LIAT has neither confirmed nor denied pulling back the letters and Corporate
Communications Manager Desmond Brown would only confirm to the media that the
talks would go ahead today.
Management at the Antigua-based airline and the employees’ representatives
have been in talks for about a year and a half about closing the CTOs. However,
the unions threatened the industrial action because LIAT issued the letters to
workers before the talks reached conclusion.
A total of 34 employees, and not 70 as the union had initially indicated, will
be affected by the closure of the ticketing offices in Antigua, Barbados,
Dominica, Grenada, St. Lucia and St. Vincent.
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