Managers earned 35% of BWIA's wage bill BY JUHEL BROWNE Guardian BWIA executives, including chief executive officer Conrad Aleong, earned more than a third of the carrier's wage bill, according to Theo Oliver, president of the Airline Superintendents Association. At a meeting of the airline's unions on Tuesday, Oliver estimated that BWIA incurred US$200,000 in employee costs per day in 2002. Of the US$200,000, BWIA's 31 executives, senior managers and the CEO earned US$70,000 while the employee costs for its remaining 2,370 last year was $130,000, according to the numbers quoted by Oliver. "They (management) in fact at the end of 2002 were enjoying 35 per cent of the labour costs at BWIA," Oliver said. A BWIA spokesman had not responded to a request for a comment by press time. He spoke during a joint meeting of the memberships of ASA, Aviation Communication and Allied Workers Union and the Communication, Transport and General Workers Trade Union. Oliver was accompanied by ACAWU president Christopher Abraham and CATTU general secretary Raymond Small. More than 100 present and ex-BWIA employees attended the meeting. The Guardian obtained a copy of the document which Oliver said was prepared by a recently retrenched BWIA official who has received full severance compensation. It explains employee costs include salaries, NIS, Health Plan and pension contributions by the company. The document has a breakdown of the staff count and salaries for 2002 at BWIA and a suggested salary average figure for all employees below the executive management level. That figure is $16,250 per month as opposed to the present average monthly salaries at BWIA which the document says range from $40,000 for pilots to $3,700 for ACAWU members to $11,000 for middle management. "US$200,000 employee costs incurred by BWIA per day - quoted by CEO Aleong - in a staff circular. The total operating costs of BWIA per day is US $700,000 per day," the document said. In January, Aleong said BWIA's employee costs for 2002 was about US$ 54 million. The BWIA management hoped to save US $800,000 a month when it retrenched 417 employees on January 28. *************************************************** The owner of Roger's Trinbago Site/TnTisland.com Roj (Roger James) escape email mailto:ejames@xxxxxxxxx Trinbago site: www.tntisland.com Carib Brass Ctn site www.tntisland.com/caribbeanbrassconnection/ Steel Expressions www.mts.net/~ejames/se/ Site of the Week: http://www.cso.gov.tt TnT Webdirectory: http://search.co.tt *********************************************************