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Air J employees take a stand against pending sale
Monday, 01 February 2010
Workers at the national airline Air Jamaica are reportedly gearing up to stoutly resist a move by the Government to divest the cash strapped airline to foreign interests.
Disruptions ahead
One of the unions representing the employees is warning of disruptions at the airline if the Golding administration fails to heed calls to keep the entity under Jamaican ownership.
In recent weeks the employees have been involved in an intense lobby for Air Jamaica to be sold to the Jamaica Airline Pilots Association (JALPA), which has presented a business plan to Prime Minister Bruce Golding.
However, Mr. Golding has indicated that he is more inclined to divesting Air Jamaica to the Trinidad-based Caribbean Airlines.
Vice President of the National Workers Union (NWU) Granville Valentine, says this is not going down well with Air Jamaica employees.
According to Mr. Valentine, the workers are extremely agitated and prepared to take strong action if the decision is made to place the airline in foreign hands.
"I can assure you that workers are just waiting for the call from the unions and other leaderships around to just say, start the protest. If the government should make that move and sell Air Jamaica to Trinidad, then what it would create is a total lockdown of all flights in and out of Jamaica that is how serious it is at this time but we hope that good sense prevails on all sides," Mr. Valentine said.
Time running out
The clock is ticking away for the Government to make a decision concerning the future ownership of the national airline.
There are reports that it will have to indicate what is to become of Air Jamaica by Thursday's meeting of the Board of the International Monetary Fund to discuss Jamaica's application for balance of payment support.
Meanwhile, the Government is facing strong criticism from a lobby group over its handling of the Air Jamaica divestment.
The group, <span style="font-weight: bold">Jamaicans United for Sustainable Development, says </span>despite the best efforts of JALPA to gain control of Air Jamaica, <span style="font-weight: bold">the divestment committee and the government have not been open and <span style="font-style: italic">transparent</span> </span>
about the deal.
It has bashed both parties for being unsupportive of the efforts of Jamaicans to retain ownership of the national airline.
It also highlighted what it says is a history of controversy, suspicion and unwarranted expenditure in the sale of national assets, such as the Sugar Company of Jamaica.
It adds that the matter is even more grave as the administration has announced a list of more than 90 state assets to be divested.
Jamaicans United for Sustainable Development is calling for an established and publicly known set of criteria for the divestment of national assets.
It also wants an open and transparent process of selecting members of divestment committees as well as the rules and rates of remuneration.
OCG called in
And the NWU says it expects to hear from the Office of the Contractor-General early this week whether it will conduct an investigation into the sale of Air Jamaica.
Air Jamaica staff wrote Contractor General Greg Christie on the weekend asking him to probe issues relating to the divestment of the airline.
The letter questions whether the government is abiding by the rules of transparency and accountability in the disposal of public assets.
Issues concerning the Open Skies arrangement which Jamaica has signed also came under scrutiny.
The workers are querying whether there is a breach on the part of the Jamaican government as they claim Trinidad has not signed on to that agreement.
"It's a binding agreement between Jamaica and the United States which can only be waivered if both parties agree. We are not aware of any agreement between the two countries, we are not aware of the waivering of this rule of policy instrument and what we have noticed is this undue haste in getting the airline divested- given away to Caribbean Airlines,"
Monday, 01 February 2010
Workers at the national airline Air Jamaica are reportedly gearing up to stoutly resist a move by the Government to divest the cash strapped airline to foreign interests.
Disruptions ahead
One of the unions representing the employees is warning of disruptions at the airline if the Golding administration fails to heed calls to keep the entity under Jamaican ownership.
In recent weeks the employees have been involved in an intense lobby for Air Jamaica to be sold to the Jamaica Airline Pilots Association (JALPA), which has presented a business plan to Prime Minister Bruce Golding.
However, Mr. Golding has indicated that he is more inclined to divesting Air Jamaica to the Trinidad-based Caribbean Airlines.
Vice President of the National Workers Union (NWU) Granville Valentine, says this is not going down well with Air Jamaica employees.
According to Mr. Valentine, the workers are extremely agitated and prepared to take strong action if the decision is made to place the airline in foreign hands.
"I can assure you that workers are just waiting for the call from the unions and other leaderships around to just say, start the protest. If the government should make that move and sell Air Jamaica to Trinidad, then what it would create is a total lockdown of all flights in and out of Jamaica that is how serious it is at this time but we hope that good sense prevails on all sides," Mr. Valentine said.
Time running out
The clock is ticking away for the Government to make a decision concerning the future ownership of the national airline.
There are reports that it will have to indicate what is to become of Air Jamaica by Thursday's meeting of the Board of the International Monetary Fund to discuss Jamaica's application for balance of payment support.
Meanwhile, the Government is facing strong criticism from a lobby group over its handling of the Air Jamaica divestment.
The group, <span style="font-weight: bold">Jamaicans United for Sustainable Development, says </span>despite the best efforts of JALPA to gain control of Air Jamaica, <span style="font-weight: bold">the divestment committee and the government have not been open and <span style="font-style: italic">transparent</span> </span>
about the deal.It has bashed both parties for being unsupportive of the efforts of Jamaicans to retain ownership of the national airline.
It also highlighted what it says is a history of controversy, suspicion and unwarranted expenditure in the sale of national assets, such as the Sugar Company of Jamaica.
It adds that the matter is even more grave as the administration has announced a list of more than 90 state assets to be divested.
Jamaicans United for Sustainable Development is calling for an established and publicly known set of criteria for the divestment of national assets.
It also wants an open and transparent process of selecting members of divestment committees as well as the rules and rates of remuneration.
OCG called in
And the NWU says it expects to hear from the Office of the Contractor-General early this week whether it will conduct an investigation into the sale of Air Jamaica.
Air Jamaica staff wrote Contractor General Greg Christie on the weekend asking him to probe issues relating to the divestment of the airline.
The letter questions whether the government is abiding by the rules of transparency and accountability in the disposal of public assets.
Issues concerning the Open Skies arrangement which Jamaica has signed also came under scrutiny.
The workers are querying whether there is a breach on the part of the Jamaican government as they claim Trinidad has not signed on to that agreement.
"It's a binding agreement between Jamaica and the United States which can only be waivered if both parties agree. We are not aware of any agreement between the two countries, we are not aware of the waivering of this rule of policy instrument and what we have noticed is this undue haste in getting the airline divested- given away to Caribbean Airlines,"
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