BWIA retrenchment - Union sees no resolve By SHERRY ANN SINGH (Trinidad Guardian) A meeting yesterday between BWIA and the Aviation Communication and Allied Workers Union (ACAWU) failed to settle concerns over the retrenchment of workers. In fact, ACAWU says BWIA is hell bent on going ahead with its plans despite union objection. ACAWU says not a single worker must go as BWIA attempts a restructuring to recover from a global decline in air travel. But BWIA says it has no choice if it is to keep the airline in the sky. Christopher Abraham, ACAWU Labour Relations Officer, said the two are no closer to resolving the issue following yesterday's meeting. Neither has BWIA determined how many workers are to go, nor from which departments. Abraham said the meeting was inconclusive and the union would meet again tomorrow to continue discussions. He said BWIA raised a number of "technical issues" which could not be discussed since the union's specialists in those areas were not present. "We discussed a lot of things. Retrenchment did come up and we're looking to see how best it can be solved," he said. That said, he is not optimistic about the outcome of further meetings."They feel they have to separate workers and even if we show justification for no retrenchment they will retrench in any case...good sense will not prevail," he said. Abraham said the union knew all along that meeting with BWIA would achieve little. He said that's because the airline already had a plan which it intended to put into effect and was merely meeting with the union to satisfy the requirements of the Industrial Relations process. "So despite the merits of our arguments, it makes little sense talking to them because they're hell bent on that," he said. The union will now meet with its membership to decide on its next course of action. Meanwhile, BWIA says it was pleased with the outcome of yesterday's meeting which it said was intended to get feedback from the union on its initial restructuring plans. Corporate Communications Manager, Clint Williams said this was a critical exercise and meetings with the other unions representing BWIA employees were scheduled. Although BWIA will be presenting the unions with proposed percentages for staff reduction in various departments, Williams said those figures were subject to change based on the feedback from unions."Reducing employee costs is not negotiable, but the manner in which it is done is," he said. "The unions have a role to play in reaching the best possible solution for a more viable, efficient operation." 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/ *********************************************************