BWIA, unions meet today By SHERRY ANN SINGH (Trinidad Guardian) BWIA and trade unions are to meet today to discuss the airline's plans to implement job cuts. The meeting comes after workers wore red on Friday in protest over BWIA's move to send a section of its staff home. "A tremendous success" was how the main union representing BWIA workers described Friday's red day demonstration. Christopher Abraham, labour relations officer with the Aviation, Communication and Allied Workers Union reported almost full support from the BWIA staff. He said the unions' next move would be based on the outcome of today's talks. Of the 2,541 workers on BWIA's payroll, Abraham reported about 90 per cent heeded a joint-union call to wear red in objection to planned retrenchment on Friday. ACAWU, which represents general staff, has about 1,500 workers in its bargaining unit. They were also joined by the Communication, Transport and General Workers Union, the Airline Superintendent's Association and the Trinidad and Tobago Airline Pilots Association. Uniformed airline workers who could not wear red clothing donned small ribbons instead to show their support. Reservations clerks at BWIA's Sunjet House offices in Port-of-Spain declined to comment on the protest. "It has been a tremendous success, it was beyond our expectations," Abraham said. However, he is in favour of the airline's move to target managerial staff first in the retrenchment drive. He said of the US$200,000 daily that BWIA spends on its payroll, the bulk of that money goes towards the payment of managerial staff. "Our calculations show 72 per cent of workers earn 36 per cent of that payroll, with the pilots getting 25 per cent and executive management earning the rest. "If any retrenchment is to take place it should be in executive management," Abraham said. As for today's meeting with management, he says the union will proceed with an open mind, although it is still adamant there should be no retrenchment. BWIA, meanwhile put down Friday's red day demonstration to the unions just doing their job.Corporate communications manager Clint Williams, said the unions had a crucial role to play in the company's reorganisation and BWIA views today's meeting as an opportunity to get their feedback on the exercise. The owner of Roger's Trinbago Site: Roj (Roger James) *************************************************** Trinbago site: http://www.tntisland.com ICQ: ICQ # 15836110 ICQ Pager: mailto:15836110@pager.icq.com escape email #!1 mailto:ejames@escape.ca yahoo email #2: mailto:triniroj@yahoo.com Yahoo Pager: triniroj Caribbean Brass & Soca Connection Group on Yahoo: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/caribsocabrass Caribbean Brass & Soca Connection Club Website http://www.tntisland.com/caribbeansocabrassconnection/ ******************************************************* Steel Expressions Orch http://www.escape.ca/~ejames/se/ email #1: mailto:steelexpressions@yahoo.com email #2: mailto:steelexpressions@home.com ******************************************************* The Trinbago Site of the Week: (NLCB) http://www.nlcb.co.tt/ (National Lotteries Control Board) courtesy of Roj Trinbago Website & TnT Web Directory Roj's Trinbago Website: http://www.tntisland.com TnT Web Directory: http://195.224.187.36/ *********************************************************