BWIA unions challenge firings BY JUHEL BROWNE Trinidad Guardian The four unions at BWIA are seeking to file legal action to stop the airline from retrenching 617 of its workers. They met yesterday and decided to consult with their respective attorneys before meeting with the 617 workers on Friday to discuss taking BWIA to court. "We feel there is violation there and we are waiting on a legal opinion on it," said Jagdeo Jagroop president of the Communication Transport and General Workers Trade Union. "Under the Retrenchment and Severance Benefit Act they were supposed to treat with us and they did not. We can challenge them in court." CATTU is represented by the law firm Ashmeed Ali & Co but Jagroop said the unions may decide to contract one lawyer to represent all of the 617 retrenched BWIA employees. Attorney-at-law Douglas Mendes, who represents the Aviation Communication and Allied Workers Union seems most likely to be the attorney who will represent retrenched employees. The four unions met on the same day that the National Trade Union Centre, the umbrella body for the nation's trade unions, condemned the BWIA retrenchments. "We call on all workers in the country to support whatever actions are taken by BWIA workers to protect their jobs," said NATUC secretary general Vincent Cabrera yesterday. He said BWIA's board of directors and executive management had blatantly violated the procedure under the Severance Act "which legislates that the employer must first give the union an opportunity to make proposals to mitigate the effect of retrenchment." Cabrera called the dismissals "brutal and terroristic." *************************************************** The owner of Roger's Trinbago Site/TnTisland.com Roj (Roger James) escape email mailto:ejames@escape.ca Trinbago site: www.tntisland.com Carib Brass Ctn site www.tntisland.com/caribbeanbrassconnection/ Steel Expressions www.mts.net/~ejames/se/ Site of the Week: www.pichemas.com TnT Webdirectory: http://search.co.tt *********************************************************