ANTIGUA-LABOR-Union wants “sincere” talks on severance payment for former LIAT employees.

ST. JOHN’S, Antigua, The General Secretary of the Antigua and Barbuda Workers Union (ABWU), David Massiah, is calling on Prime Minister Gaston Browne to hold “sincere” discussions with former employees of the regional airline, LIAT, dismissing his statement that the union “will settle for nothing less than 100 percent” of the arrears owed to the workers.

Massiah said that the union has been calling for “meaningful dialogue” on the matter but that Prime Minister Browne “has refused to have any dialogue on the matter and literally said take it or leave it.

“As LIAT employees continue to suffer and cry out for the government of Antigua and Barbuda as a lead shareholder of LIAT (1974) Limited to live up to its legal and moral obligations, the Antigua and Barbuda Workers’ Union continues to advocate for justice and meaningful dialogue on the matter of the employees’ terminal benefits and the future of air transportation and LIAT’s crucial role in this regard,” Massiah said in a statement.

“We are therefore calling on Prime Minister Gaston Browne and his administration to dialogue meaningfully and sincerely with the employees and their representatives to effect a resolution of all matters involving the LIAT (1974) Limited employees and the airline’s future as a vital part of the Caribbean’s quest for integration and social, economic and cultural development”.

Earlier this week, Prime Minister Browne, speaking at a town hall meeting, issued a warning to the unions representing former LIAT (1974) workers cautioning against any further delay in agreeing on a settlement.

Prime Minister Browne said that the government would continue to negotiate in good faith with the unions but warned that he was contemplating engaging directly with the former workers. The government had previously offered the former workers half of their entitlements in cash, land, and bonds.

“The Antigua and Barbuda Workers Union, which represents a significant amount of the staff, continue to insist their workers will not accept the 50 percent; they have said that they will settle for nothing less than 100 percent.

“So, what I was advised by the staff of LIAT is that we should negotiate bilateral deals with the staff and forget about the unions,” Browne said.

LIAT, which is owned by the governments of Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Dominica, and St Vincent and the Grenadines (SVG), owes millions of dollars (One EC dollar=US$0.37 cents) to its former employees, including pilots, who through their unions have been demanding the payments owed.

The unions say they are disappointed that their shareholder governments have not addressed severance payments to the former workers, even as the airline has been operating a reduced schedule since November 2020.

The airline was forced to close its operations and lay off its staff in March 2020 after the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic exacerbated its financial difficulties. Last year, the Antigua & Barbuda government offered two million EC dollars to partially satisfy the cash component of the compassionate payout to those former LIAT workers here.

In August, Dominica’s Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit said he wanted a “humanitarian’ resolution to the ongoing pay dispute, and last month, the St. Lucia government said former LIAT workers there would soon receive their outstanding termination benefits.

The government said EC$4.4 million in outstanding benefits would be paid to the former workers.

Earlier this month, Prime Minister Browne told Parliament that the union’s insistence on receiving 100 percent payment for its workers had been the impediment in discussions, describing the union’s stance as “extremely unreasonable.

“I think most of LIAT’s staff understand that the offer of 50 percent is a reasonable offer, so what I said to them is, the elections are imminent, and immediately after the elections, we will certainly negotiate with the staff on a bilateral basis, assuming there is no consensus among the unions by then,” Browne told the town hall meeting.

But messiah, in his video statement, said that for Prime Minister Browne to suggest that his union is playing politics with the issue “is utter nonsense.”

Meanwhile, former president of Leeward Islands Airline Pilots Associations (LIALPA), Carl Burke, has called for patience, saying the talks were delicate.

“I don’t think it would be possible to complete the negotiations before Christmas, but maybe an interim payment to offer the staff some relief since some of them have had no income for two years.

“Based on the seriousness of these negotiations, it may take some time as the union will want to be diligent to come up with a reasonable package for the former employees,” Burke told the Antigua Observer newspaper, calling for the administration to re-engage in a more cordial manner.

“I believe that if the parties were to sit down with the government and understand the government’s situation, the government understanding that the staff have been suffering [more could be accomplished],” he said