LIME Poised to Announce Major Changes

Details

Business News

Wednesday, 11 July 2012 02:30

By Everton Barnes

Antigua St. John’s - British telecommunications giant Cable and Wireless, trading as LIME, is convening a high level meeting in Jamaica on Thursday with officials of several trade unions that represent its employees throughout the Caribbean.

General Secretary of the Antigua and Barbuda Workers Union (ABWU), Senator David Massiah said LIME called the meeting because it plans to make a major announcement that will likely impact its staff throughout the network.

“We have been told that the meeting will be convened by LIME’s Chief Executive Officer (CEO) in the Caribbean, David Shaw, who wants to meet the trade unions to discuss what the company terms ‘urgent matters’,” Massiah reported.

Though he was unable to pinpoint what these matters were, he said the unions believe that the decision will have some impact on the company’s operations throughout the region. Massiah, who is already in Jamaica, will attend a meeting on Wednesday that will be held by the trade unions in preparation for the meeting with the LIME CEO on Thursday.

Massiah also announced that the ABWU recently became the bargaining agent for the management staff at LIME, Antigua, thus clearing the way for the union to represent both categories of workers management and line staff.

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“This speaks to the level of representation that the ABWU has been able to deliver and it also speaks to the confidence the management staff has placed in the union. It is also a demonstration of the union’s ability and expertise in handling matters that have both a local and regional/international component,” the union boss stated.

The ABWU was intimately involved in the negotiations between Barclays Bank and Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (CIBC) when they merged to create FirstCaribbean International Bank.

Meanwhile, Massiah is also reporting that the ABWU’s Industrial Relations Officer, Chester Hughes, represented the union at a meeting in Trinidad last week that brought together trade unions that represent workers in the telecoms sector. He said the unions are looking at ways to unionise workers employed by Digicel throughout the Caribbean.

“Digicel is now a major telecoms player in the Caribbean and we want to let its staff know that it is their right to be unionised. We also plan to launch a region-wide campaign to educate Digicel staff of their rights under our various laws,” The ABWU General Secretary declared.

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