BWIA hit by strike in Antigua

Faced with mounting challenges, national carrier BWIA West Indies Ltd was hit by a wildcat strike by employees in its Antigua station on Thursday. It happened because of a wrong date on a letter of a collective agreement which had been signed by the airline’s management. The action, however, did not affect the arrivals nor departures of BWIA’s scheduled flights at VC Bird International airport. BWIA has contracted out its ground handling in Antigua to Caribbean Airport Services Ltd. According to general secretary of the Antigua and Barbuda Workers’ Union, Senator David Massiah, there has been an ongoing problem for several years involving the collective agreement. “We have been asking that the clerical staff in St John’s be included in the collective agreement since the staff became unionised in 2000.”

Massiah said the union met with BWIA officials from Trinidad on June 22, but nothing had been heard since then. He said he wrote to Port-of-Spain on July 20 and asked that they give the matter top priority, assuring them the union would not call for “retroactivity.” He urged them in his July 20 correspondence to deal urgently with the matter to avoid any industrial action. Massiah said airline officials in Port-of-Spain had assured them on the telephone that the matter would be dealt with by having local manager Gatesworth James sign the document. James confirmed the document had been signed, but another problem arose when the employees demanded a two percent wage increase. James said increases were being dealt with in the current negotiations, but these have not yet concluded. A check with Antigua sources revealed the workers went back to work yesterday morning.