After nearly two years, the Airport Airline and Allied Workers Union (AAWU) may have a new industrial agreement worked out with the government by the end of the month, and possibly by next week.
Union President Nelerene Harding told the Bahama Journal on Monday that the government has withdrawn its proposal to cut the salaries of union members by five percent, a proposition the union chief said “was not even up for discussion” among union members.
“The last industrial agreement we signed some five years ago; we signed it on a Good Friday after one year and 10 months, and I would have to say this contract is now leading into that timeframe,” she said.
“I think today we came to a tentative agreement that there’s a timeframe. We are pushing forward now, and-[We hope], we will be able to bring closure to this by at least the end of April.”
The union conceded three points in return for the removal of the pay cut proposal, and Ms. Harding said now that the major hurdle in the negotiations has been cleared, the two sides may conclude the negotiations as early as next Tuesday.
The union chief said the two sides will meet again on Friday at 10am, and again early next week, probably Monday and Tuesday.
“We are happy that the board, representing the government, (in) their talks over the weekend, came to the understanding that this (pay cut) was totally unacceptable to present to individuals,” Ms. Harding said.
The compromise heads off any further industrial action by the members of the AAAWU and appears to have broken a deadlock, as Ms. Harding told the Journal that the union had not been prepared under any circumstances to accept the proposed pay cut.
As the compromise was successful, members of the AAAWU, employed primarily at Bahamasair, are no longer on work-to-rule.
The concessions granted by the union related to how union members were paid for having to work on scheduled off days, and how flight attendants earn overtime, among other things.
“(The five percent pay cut) was always the biggest contention that we’ve had since we started the negotiation period,” Ms. Harding said.
“There were a lot of things in the industrial agreement that we thought were just outright unacceptable to even present to working individuals or any employees in a company.”
Ms. Harding pointed out that while negotiations involve compromise, there were items on which neither side was prepared to compromise. She said that neither side would agree to anything that either the government or the union was unprepared to live with for five years.
“We all would like to put this behind us very soon, and we’re working towards that speedily,” the union president said.
By: Quincy Parker, The Bahama Journal
