Antigua PM Browne tells Union “take me to court” over LIAT severance
“Take me to court.”
That is what Antigua and Barbuda’s Prime Minister Gaston Browne has told the union representing former LIAT workers in the neighbouring island.
Browne told the Antigua and Barbuda Workers Union that he wants nothing to do with them where discussing 100% severance to ex-LIAT workers is concerned.
He said the ABWU is unreasonable to ask Antigua to pay 100% when it only holds 34 percent of shares in LIAT 1974 ltd.
But in response to the prime minister, the general secretary of the Antigua and Barbuda Workers Union said Browne continues to “bully and disgrace the unions and the workers into accepting, without any negotiation, an offer that is anything but compassionate”.
“The workers, by contrast, have been extraordinarily flexible with the shareholder governments on this matter. Do I need to remind you that it was the said workers who agreed in principle to your suggestion of a “haircut” on their entitlements in order to save the airline? But you, Mr. Gaston Browne, have since taken a unilateral approach as to how this settlement of terminal benefits is configured,” Massiah said.
Browne has offered a 50% compassionate payment offer in cash and bonds. Still, Massiah said the compassionate request should not and indeed does not represent the final and full claim of severance payments and other legitimate and legally-entitled terminal benefits of the employees.
“It is considered an interim partial payment of the employee’s entitlements,” he said.
Massiah said as LIAT employees continue to suffer and cry out for the government of Antigua and Barbuda, as a lead shareholder of LIAT, to live up to its moral and legal obligations, the ABWU remains relentless in its pursuit of justice and meaningful dialogue on the matter of the employee’s terminal benefits.
Last week, Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley said her government would be dishing out $75,000 in cash to former LIAT workers.
Mottley made the statement while she was wrapping up the debate on the 2023 Financial Statement and Budgetary Proposals in the House of Assembly.
She said the latest decision is in keeping with a commitment from her government to honour about 89 former LIAT workers, paying almost $10 million in cash and bonds in severance.
Before that undertaking, St Lucia’s Prime Minister Phillip Jean Pierre also paid off the former LIAT workers in Castries.- DNO BBC
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