MANAGEMENT AT GRANTLEY Adams International Airport (GAIA) Inc. has until noon today to get back to the National Union of Public Workers (NUPW) with a favourable response.
Sticking to the threat they “will do what we have to do” in order to get GAIA to pay the workers the 3.5 per cent the union insists is owed to workers for 2011, president Akanni McDowall hinted they were already setting things in motion.
McDowall said the union met with the shop stewards at GAIA for about two hours yesterday afternoon on the matter. While not revealing the details of the discussion, he said coming out of that meeting at the airport, the workers are “committed to whatever action we as a union decide that they should take”.
About 200 of the close to 400 workers employed at GAIA staged a three and a half-hour demonstration in the car park on January 29, and the NUPW indicated then that it had several other plans up its sleeve to get GAIA to bow to its demands.
Despite several pieces of correspondence from the union and last month’s protest, GAIA does not seem to be moving away from its position that the workers are not owed any monies.
In a full page advertisement in the last SUNDAY SUN, GAIA gave 15 points to support its point of view.
The company is insisting that the union agreed to take the 3.5 per cent off the table, but in a counter McDowall said he spoke to former general secretary Dennis Clarke, who was the lead negotiator at the time, and Clarke made it clear that the 3.5 per cent was never taken off the table. (YB)
