Telecommunications giant LIME has until tomorrow to return to the negotiations table or it will trigger an island-wide work stoppage.
The Barbados Workers’ Union (BWU) has called on the company to retract the 97 letters of dismissal issued to staff last week or it will launch a national strike.
Following a meeting scheduled since December 31, 2012, that was held yesterday between the BWU, led by Sir Roy Trotman, and Minister of Labour Esther Byer-Suckoo, Sir Roy told reporters that while the union understood that industrial action should be a last resort, it had taken “enough insults” on the matter.
LIME’s managing director Alex McDonald was absent from yesterday’s meeting which lasted just over an hour at the Ministry of Labour’s offices in Warrens, St Michael.
Referring to the dismissals, Sir Roy said: “In Barbados, such a course of action by any employer is reprehensible and totally without foundation or justification. . . . Is there a ground for that employer to say, ‘I have decided that I am finished with this and nobody is going to get me to talk about it further’?”