LIME employees to protest redundancy decision

Operations at telecommunications company LIME Jamaica could be affected Thursday by protest action involving hundreds of its employees. Reports are that about 800 workers will be involved.

The protest is reportedly triggered by LIME's absence at a meeting at the Ministry of Labour on Wednesday to discuss an impending redundancy exercise which will result in 300 jobs being cut. Another meeting at the Ministry last week was called off after no representative of the company showed up.

LIME employees are reportedly upset at the company's no show at the two meetings, hence the decision to protest.

 “The company did not turn up and we understand that they have written to the Ministry that they are not aware of a dispute or what the dispute is about: which is absolute false and is just another bit of dishonesty by the company, because I wrote to the managing director stating what the union’s - UAWU’s - position is and telling him that we would be reporting the dispute to the Ministry of Labour.

“The workers are justifiably upset and there’s unlikely to be work done. The three unions involved are likely to be pulling their workers off the job,” said Garfield Harvey, vice president of the University and Allied Workers’ Union (UAWU).           

Mr. Harvey said the workers will be gathering at LIME's head office as part of the protest.

When contacted Wednesday night, Gary Sinclair, LIME's chief executive officer (CEO), said he had not been informed of plans by the workers to take protest action. Mr. Sinclair also said he was also unaware of industrial unrest at the company.

He explained that he has been in contact with the workers and providing details on the outsourcing of some of the company's operations.

 “An overwhelming sentiment amongst those who attended was that the vision for the future really didn’t look as doom and gloom as was being thought originally, once we laid out what was going to occur. So again the sentiments on the ground was really just to resolve any issue that have arisen between myself and the union partners; to get those issues resolved as soon as possible,” said Mr. Sinclair.