Liat pilots meeting on next move
TROUBLED WEATHER AHEAD: LIAT Airlines pilots have threatened to withdraw their services if no collective bargaining agreement is reached on December 1, which is also the start of the tourist season,
by BARRY ALLEYNE
MORE THAN 100 LIAT PILOTS will meet in Barbados and Antigua today to decide their next move in negotiations for a new collective bargaining agreement after 13 years.
Since Monday, the Leeward Islands Airline Pilots’ Association (LIALPA), through its chairman Captain Michael Blackburn, has been saying the pilots are ready to withdraw their services if an agreement is not reached when they meet on December 1.
LIAT’s corporate communications manager Desmond Brown had responded that the company had in no way stalled the process.
But yesterday, Blackburn revealed that LIALPA was willing to go as far as Antigua’s High Court of Justice, if LIAT insisted on introducing three new issues to the arbitration process.
The body will hold separate emergency meetings for its executive council and general membership today - one in Barbados in the morning, then another in Antigua and Barbuda in the evening - to put a vote to members on their next course of action.
Blackburn said that today’s meeting would have no effect on LIAT’s schedule, since pilots on duty would remain in the sky, and be briefed on the meeting’s outcome.
“LIAT keeps talking about the court process, but there is nothing before the court,” Blackburn said. “The court has clearly stated already that if LIAT wants to introduce new issues in arbitration, then that would have to be done through the court. It has not been done, and LIALPA will therefore not deal with it in arbitration,” the senior captain told the DAILY NATION yesterday.
The chairman noted that last July 30 in Antigua’s Industrial Court, LIAT sought to include issues of “basic pay and premium pay” as issues for arbitration.
The court rejected this but granted liberty to apply to the court to have these issues determined.
“LIALPA has not been notified of any referrals by LIAT of these issues for determination by the court,” Blackburn added.
He said that if LIAT met with the LIALPA in good faith to discuss settlement of its retroactive pay issues, including their Pension Fund administered though CLICO, it was quite likely that further confrontation could be avoided.(Nation News)