The Tribune

By NATARIO McKENZIE

Tribune Business Reporter

nmckenzie@tribunemedia.net

The trade union leader representing Bahamas Telecommunications Company’s (BTC) line staff has described the company’s protracted downsizing process as “inhumane”, adding: “Morale is in the tank”.

Bernard Evans, the Bahamas Communications and Public Officers Union’s (BCPOU) president, said meetings with BTC executives were now set for tomorrow after those scheduled for last week were postponed. The union is also set to hold a general membership meeting on the way forward.

Mr Evans warned the union may have to resort to industrial action, and said: ‘We might have to take industrial action, some kind of action. We don’t want to do it but given the circumstances we may have to.”

BTC announced in February that it needed to cut costs by reducing its 779-strong workforce in preparation for mobile competition. BTC is reportedly seeking to cut as many as 150 staff, with just under 100 employees having accepted voluntary separation packages, according to the union.

Prior to the Easter holidays, BTC chief executive Leon Williams sent a memo to staff advising that due to the small number of voluntary separation applications, the company would move into the redundancies phase.

“Management announced this redundancy, and really it’s appearing as though they haven’t selected names or completed the list already,” Mr Evans said.

“People are wondering, guessing whether they are the ones that are going to be selected.You would think that they [BTC] would have had a list identified, since they had a list of those that they were going to refuse if they had applied for the voluntary separation package. It’s just inhumane to really stretch this out for so long.”

He added: “Maybe when we meet on Tuesday they will have something to tell us. We expect to have a general membership meeting next Tuesday on the way forward, and whether or not we need to take some kind of action.

“Morale right now is in the tank. If you had to sit around wondering whether you should be looking for a job in a market that is already saturated, I can’t tell you the wide range of emotions that people are going through.

“They are seeking answers from the unions and, unfortunately, we don’t have answers. We have to have something to tell them on Tuesday because this definitely can’t go on much longer. It’s going to come to a boiling point at some point.”

Mr Williams recently told Tribune Business that BTC and its controlling shareholder, Cable & Wireless Communications (CWC), were targeting a financial cost savings from the downsizing rather than a certain number of jobs.