Express lays off 33 workers

“Under that piece of legislation certain particulars that they must provide include the names of the workers, length of service, and the actual process used in selecting workers. “All that we have received from the company is a generic item of correspondence which we received last week Thursday indicating no names; just classifications, departments and numbers. We understand that they have effected the notices of retrenchment to the 33 workers so that our position really at this point in time is that we are awaiting the information from the company. This is why we have indicated that they are in breach of the procedure that they were supposed to follow under the RSB,” Als told reporters.

He said the union would take the necessary action at the appropriate time, but it is still awaiting relevant information from the company.

He said when the union receives that information it would then be in a position to engage in things under the law and other action it deems appropriate, dependent on the nature of the discussions that would take place. Als said 25 employees from the Express newspaper and eight from TV6 were sent home, including staff from editorial, advertising, pressroom, news and programming. He said that on December 4, 2015, the union received notice of the intention to send home about 60 workers.

He added, “We would have engaged discussions on that, and they would have had to take back a number of workers at that point in time. At the Express there has been a programme of attrition.

Over the last three years or so over 100 workers have gone from the Express in particular. What fuelled the return of some workers is that they were simply unable to engage the process of thinking in newspaper with the skeletal staff that they had so they were compelled to take back persons