The Tribune

By NICO SCAVELLA

Tribune Staff Reporter

nscavella@tribunemedia.net

BAHAMASAIR officials expressed their “absolute shock and disappointment” yesterday that the Airport Airline & Allied Workers Union may reportedly engage in industrial action due to a dispute over outstanding benefits.

The airline said reported threats from the union’s president were “a deliberate attempt to disrupt the company’s operations and shake customer confidence during our peak season.”

“We don’t want to resort to industrial action but the government reneged on the position that they gave to us,” AAAWU President Nelerine Harding said in response. “And it’s clear that the minister of labour, they did not like the agreement that he came to and it is now a tug-of-war between them. And I am not getting involved in their internal disputes and issues.”

Ms Harding yesterday accused Bahamasair of allegedly “reneging” on its previous agreement to honour the terms and conditions for the payment of increments for its members.

She also hit out at assertions from Bahamasair officials that the union previously “outrightly rejected” management’s proposal to alter the terms and conditions surrounding the increments union members would receive in 2016 and 2017.

She admitted that while she did reject management’s proposal, it was primarily because the union already had an agreement with Labour Minister Shane Gibson and because what the union would have received via those agreements “was in line with what every other union would have gotten.”

Ms Harding’s statements came after Bahamasair’s board and management team said that she sent a letter to airline officials rejecting management’s proposal to reconsider the terms and conditions surrounding the union’s reported proposal with the airline which seeks 18 increments over a five-year period for union members.

Bahamasair officials said had Ms Harding accepted their proposal, the company would ensure that all union members would receive “all of their back pay by cheque” no later than December 18, which officials said amounts to over $820,000 in payments.

When contacted yesterday however, Ms Harding refuted the claims, maintaining that the union would not “compromise on a position that Bahamasair already gave and said that they were willing to pay.”

Additionally, Ms Harding claimed that Mr Gibson reportedly referred the matter to Deputy Prime Minister Philip “Brave” Davis, the minister responsible for Bahamasair. She said that Mr Davis then referred the matter “back down” to Bahamasair’s General Manager Henry Woods, whom she claimed “had nothing to do with the negotiations.”

As a result, she said the union has now reached “an impasse with the government as to who they would like for us to negotiate with.”

“We’re not prepared to renegotiate something over with somebody who is under the rank of the person responsible for negotiations and labour disputes in the country,” she said.

Ms Harding said that she has since requested the intervention of Prime Minister Perry Christie to hopefully bring some closure to the dispute.