By SANCHESKA BROWN
Tribune Staff Reporter
sbrown@tribunemedia.net
AROUND 140 people at the Bahamas Telecommunications Company (BTC) will be made redundant next week, when the corporation begins their “callous,” “first round” of downsizing, according to Bahamas Communications and Public Officers Union (BCPOU) Secretary General Dino Rolle.
Yesterday, Mr Rolle told The Tribune that BTC advised both unions representing line staff and upper management that come Tuesday, June 30, the company intends to make a number of departments redundant. Mr Rolle said the news angered union members and strike action is “very possible.”
“This means that all of those employees will be let go,” Mr Rolle said. “Based on the numbers we were given, that is more than 140 persons. So our next step is to have a joint membership meeting and advise members of their rights then take their instructions and see how it goes.”
“The number of how many people would be let go has been floating around for a while but we never received anything specific from management. Sometimes they were in the hundreds and sometimes it was lower. However, in a letter today, they confirmed almost 150 and also indicated that this is only the first round,” he added.
Mr Rolle said BTC executives were “cold” and “callous” and did not seem to care that persons’ lives are being affected. He said it was a slap in the face that union officials “just had a meeting with management on Monday” but were not informed of the layoffs at that time.
“Everything was supposed to be on the table,” Mr Rolle added. “We did not expect to meet with them one day and then get a call the next day that our members would be separated in 36 hours. Walking through the halls was so heart-breaking. The mood is sombre, everyone is sad. It is very possible that strike action will be coming. Sitting in that meeting and seeing how hurt and infuriated everyone is, I would not be surprised if the members walk out,” Mr Rolle said.
The Tribune understands that some of the areas to be affected include some retail stores, billing departments and directory publications, among others. BTC has advised the union that the employees impacted by the planned layoffs come from areas that have been identified for outsourcing.
BTC has reportedly advised government that it anticipates union and employee backlash from the redundancies and will increase security at its locations as a result.
In February, it was reported that BTC has plans to cut between 150 to 250 jobs in preparation for competition in the mobile phone sector.
As a result, the union filed an application for a strike vote with the Ministry of Labour. The application was submitted two days before BTC workers in New Providence and Grand Bahama staged reported sick outs to protest the expected lay offs.
Earlier this month, BCPOU President Bernard Evans, said morale was low due to the way BTC was handling the issue. At the time, he said, BTC had left employees in limbo as they awaited their fate over looming layoffs.
“This has been the most painful, disgusting, poor exercise,” he said previously. “The morale of the staff – it’s as if you have a noose hanging outside the window and everyone is just watching you, don’t know when they will pull the gallows.
“They’re asking the union to act responsibly. You know of the disruption we’ve had, trying to bring to bear our concerns. We’ve staged sick-outs and everything short of a strike because we can’t frustrate the public; we have a duty to provide service. At the same time, they’ve taken advantage of our good nature and it’s almost shameful that in this time of the year and in this time of this country when there aren’t jobs available, the people are just sitting around the table and sending out rumours that there are lists going on and this one is going and that one is staying.”
BTC CEO Leon Williams has defended the move and said that the impending cuts were strictly business related.
“This is not about emotions or about politics,” Mr Williams said earlier this year. “This is simply business. No bank, (or) Atlantis, (or) Baha Mar, is going to run it any differently. So let’s not get emotive, emotional about this. This is a business that we’ve got to run. And if we fold up, the Bahamian people lose 51 cents out of every dollar BTC makes.
“So when I hear people talk about the union I just want to put it into perspective. If this (were) your business what would you do? You would seek as much as possible to save as many jobs as possible, but you cannot save them all. It’s business. It’s not how I feel or how you feel.”
Comments
duppyVAT 8 years, 10 months ago
Perry found fault with Ingraham's open BTC privatization (compared to his Blue waters deal). Perry found fault with CWC and the English boss who tried to upgrade BTC and get rid of all of the politically connected employees. Perry came to pwer in 2012 and claimed to get back the 51% majority ownership of BTC and put his boy Leon Williams in charge .......... now how does all of the smoke and mirror rhetoric look now???????????......................... Is BTC "better" today than in 2012????
Bahamianpride 8 years, 10 months ago
Government ran power, phone, utilities etc is not efficient and the quality of service stinks. No competition equals poor quality, higher prices. If our government had planned it right with education and development we could have thousands of global service tech jobs in the Bahamas. We could have also took a strong position with solar energy. These government ran institutions is nothing but bloated job for vote operations charging excessive prices that put a financial stranglehold on families.
TruthHurts 8 years, 10 months ago
I for one don't see any difference in their output performance or services that they provided before or after CWC. (Take this from someone who knows from the inside) The only difference was that they heavily advertised the same below par services they offered along with new phones. Nothing more!
Furthermore, CWC has had a very bad reputation throughout the Caribbean, so I don't know how they were able to acquire the contract to operate within The Bahamas!
TalRussell 8 years, 10 months ago
Here we goes again, da small man's and woman's taking the lumps big shots politicians.
PLP Cabinet unleashes da first of soon be out paychques tsunami at BEC, all da while mum's da word from AG's office, or for that matter from da leader red party, who the name of the alleged quarter million dollars corrupt bribery beneficiary really is? Minnis sure ain't pushing for AG hirry up name the bribe taker? Why not? Is there any politician not in the loop to know the name? You tell me cuz there's nothing like corruption make them politicians be's overly protective each other, even if they's arch enemies. Am I right?
Well_mudda_take_sic 8 years, 10 months ago
I guess we now know why BTC's foreign majority owner was willing to give back to the government 2% of BTC's equity, in the form of non-voting shares, at the time purportedly free of charge. It seems our Christie-led PLP government undertook at the same time not to apply any political pressure or otherwise interfere in any future drastic down-sizing of BTC as the quid pro quo for the additional 2% equity stake re-acquired on a gratis basis from the controlling foreigner owner of BTC. This re-acquired 2% equity stake in BTC is supposedly held by a Foundation (of dubious legal establishment) which Sean McWeeney advised be created for the benefit of the Bahamian people. No doubt we will all soon be told that the dividends received by this questionable Foundation from BTC in respect of its 2% non-voting shares will somehow be used to ease the pain of those now in the process of being laid off by BTC. Has our Christie-led PLP government effectively allowed itself to be bribed by the foreign controlling shareholder of BTC as a result of the bullying tactics that Franky Wilson (aka Snake) applied at the request of Christie to the new controlling owners of BTC? Certainly plenty of food for thought here, not to mention the possible significant related risks entailed for the new foreign owners if found to have been somehow engaged in the bribery of our government. What in the hell were the foreign controlling owners of BTC thinking at the time they agreed to return 2% of BTC to the Bahamian government, back then purportedly free of charge and under absolutely no contractual obligation to do so?!
realfreethinker 8 years, 10 months ago
You get what you pay for.How is little Leon working out for you. Wasn't he suppose to be the savior of BTC.
Sickened 8 years, 10 months ago
We sure are hearing about A LOT of layoff's recently. Ocean Club, Baha Mar, BTC, RBC, Scotiabank... seems like an average about 50-100 a week so far this year. Has anyone heard of any hirings? How many more layoffs can our little country take?
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