Let's work to save BWIA, Tom Yew tells workers BY JUHEL BROWNE Guardian 06.13.03 As BWIA employees met with their unions yesterday afternoon to discuss Government's mandated reduction of labour costs, their new corporate general manager Nelson Tom Yew said he expected workers to agree to salary cuts to help save the carrier. BWIA has been instructed by Government to negotiate a plan with the employees' unions to reduce labour costs at the carrier by Monday. "I want to start rebuilding confidence in BWIA, that BWIA will be here," Tom Yew said in an interview yesterday. "One of the conditionalities that the Government has put on BWIA to get additional funding is that we reduce the cost of labour. We've been meeting for the past few days with all the representatives from the unions and our own staff where applicable to facilitate that objective," he said. He added: "We are negotiating with the unions and we will report to the Government what are our successes or our failures." Tom Yew said he already has received positive commitments from BWIA's executives, the superintendents' association and the pilots. However, he said the two unions which represent the majority of BWIA's workers, the Aviation Communication and Allied Workers Union and the Communication, Transport and General Workers Trade Union, "have so far not made a positive commitment." The leaders of those unions were to meet with their memberships during a joint meeting, scheduled to begin at 4 pm yesterday at the ACAWU's headquarters in Tacarigua. Asked if BWIA is considering job cuts to reduce its labour costs, Tom Yew said: "That is something we not considering at this point in time." *************************************************** 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/ Mas Site: www.tntisland.com/tntrecords/mas2003/ Site of the Week: http://www.carib-link.net/naparima/naps.html TnT Webdirectory: http://search.co.tt *********************************************************