The Tribune

By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

The Bahamas Telecommunications Company’s (BTC) trade unions have been warned their tactics “could be fatal” to a business that has lost $110m in annual revenue in less than three years.

Garfield “Garry” Sinclair, BTC’s chief executive, bluntly told the worker representatives to “stop finding a dark cloud behind every silver lining” otherwise the former government monopoly will face “an existential crisis” as it tries to “win again” in a fiercely competitive communications market.

In an impassioned call for unity within BTC, Mr Sinclair told Tribune Business that both the line staff and management union must “resist the temptation to fall back into ancient habits and practices from the monopoly days” if the carrier is to adjust its business model and properly compete with the likes of Cable Bahamas and Aliv.

Revealing that BTC had just agreed terms on a new industrial agreement with its management union, following closely behind a similar deal agreed with the Bahamas Communications and Public Officers Union (BCPOU) for the line staff, Mr Sinclair said he was at a loss when it came to identifying their continued grievances and instinct to “fight at every step”.

Voicing disquiet at the two unions’ seeming tendency to “sow dissent and extend controversy at the first sign of adversity”, Mr Sinclair argued that the “vast majority” of BTC workers and consumers now wanted to “move on” following last week’s controversy.

While acknowledging the hurt and upset caused by Balan Nair, chief executive of Liberty Latin America (LiLAC), in his remarks about Bahamian worker productivity and attitudes, Mr Sinclair said the necessary apologies had been made quickly. And he used the comments by the head of BTC’s ultimate parent to lay down a challenge to his staff and the two trade unions.

He argued that the fall-out “should stiffen resolve” among BTC workers to achieve the vision he has set out for the carrier, namely to “prove” that it is the best communications operator in the region and then the world.

Mr Sinclair said the “tremendous reservoir of goodwill” among Bahamian consumers towards BTC, as result of its history and brand recognition, meant that its turnaround and transformation into a market leader could be achieved “in a very short space of time “ - but only if management, unions and workers were “aligned” as one.

“I’m imploring our union partners to resist the temptation to sow dissension and extend adversarial controversies beyond when everyone else has moved on,” the BTC chief told Tribune Business.

“In times of adversity we need to pull together in a competitive fashion and I don’t see us doing that. Let us not succumb to this reflexive need to fight and sow dissension when everyone else has decided to move on.

“It’s unnecessary and inexplicable when the work done to adjust the operating model has been solid, and we’ve been able to get industrial agreements that we’d not been able to achieve in the previous two years,” Mr Sinclair continued.

“We’d made the accommodations required that allow us in conjunction with our union partners to adjust the operating model, yet at the first sign of adversity they’re sowing more dissent and extending the controversy. There are instincts that could be fatal to our business, and our union partners do not have experience in a competitive environment.”

Mr Sinclair, a Jamaican, who has headed communications operations in both his home nation and Caribbean-wide for Cable & Wireless Communications (CWC), BTC’s immediate parent, suggested that the latter’s two unions are using “ancient practices” to get their own way which are simply ill-suited for the competitive environment in which the company finds itself.

He added that BTC has no choice but to “adjust its business operating model” given the sharp drop in revenues that resulted from the November 2016 end to its mobile monopoly, which traditionally accounted for between two-thirds to 70 percent of its top-line, due to the entrance of Aliv. Otherwise, he warned, BTC’s long-term survival may be at stake.

“What is the grievance exactly? We’ve just signed two industrial agreements that were outstanding for two years,” Mr Sinclair told Tribune Business. “This is not an effort to blame anyone. I just think instinctively we’re relying on instincts from another time. Our instincts need to be to relying on our competitive instincts and what we need to do to compete against the competition.

“We are actually moving ahead and concluding agreements we’ve been unable to conclude for the past two years. We’ve managed to do that by making concessions to the unions to finalise the operating model that’s appropriate for the operating environment we’re in.

“We’re no longer a $330m a year revenue business. We’re a $220m business. If we don’t make that adjustment we’re in an existential crisis. It’s been tough to make adjustments to the operating model now that it has one-third less revenue. The ability to do that has been tough.”

Describing the need to work with BTC’s unions as “a privilege but a challenge”, Mr Sinclair said the carrier’s main competitors - BISX-listed Cable Bahamas and its Aliv mobile subsidiary - were able to adjust their business models at a moment’s notice, and as they saw fit, because they were operating in a non-unionised workplace.

BTC does not have that luxury, and Mr Sinclair said the portrayal of their industrial agreement as only an unsigned deal ‘in principle’ by BCPOU union president, Dino Rolle, highlighted his contention that the unions are seeking to find fault where there is none.

“It shows again an absolute determination to find a dark cloud behind every single lining,” Mr Sinclair argued. “They’re trying to claw it back, trying to downplay and denigrate this agreement by saying it’s in principle.

“We have a written Heads of Agreement signed between us and the union, laying out the substantive terms of the Heads of Agreement. We’ve just got an agreement with the management union on the same basis. They keep looking for dark clouds behind every silver lining to extend dissension, extend contention. We continue to ask: Where is the need for this dissension?”

While many outside observers will likely agree with Mr Sinclair’s comments, his stance risks further stoking industrial tensions at BTC. These passions rose sharply last week after Mr Nair’s address to staff of Liberty’s Jamaican subsidiary, Flow Jamaica, went viral on social media in which he appeared to unfavourably compare BTC workers with their Jamaican counterparts.

Mr Sinclair, who was present at that meeting, told Tribune Business that Mr Nair’s comments had been taken “out of context” because he was speaking specifically about his experience when he visited BTC’s Mall at Marathon store.

The BTC chief emphasised that the remarks were “not aimed at the Bahamian people”, and pointed out that Mr Nair had rapidly apologised for any hurt caused to both the Prime Minister and wider public.

However, both the BCPOU and Bahamas Communications and Public Managers Union (BCPMU) have publicly rejected Mr Nair’s apology. And, just an hour after Tribune Business’s interview with Mr Sinclair, they staged a protest walk around BTC’s head office demanding that both he and the Liberty Latin America chief resign.

This is unlikely to deter Mr Sinclair, who pledged to Tribune Business that he will be “relentless” in executing his and CWC/Liberty’s plans for BTC given his conviction that he is taking the carrier on “the right road”.

Describing last week’s controversy, and the fragile state of labour relations, as “a bump in the road”, he added: “We’re doing the hard work to win currently, and don’t want to be derailed by reflexive, knee jerk reactions - the ancient approach to industrial relations that pits one segment of the organisation against another and sows dissent in an environment where we’re trying to win again.

“I’m sure my union partners’ intentions are pristine but we know what the road to hell is paved with.... For the life of me, this preposterous inclination to find a dark cloud behind every silver lining and to extend controversy rather than put it behind us as fast as we possibly can is disingenuous and not progressive.

“Let’s not focus on going down rabbit holes with this business. If we continue to go down that road, a cloud behind every silver lining, we’re not going to escape from the trap we’re in. Let’s not be fighting every step of the way. This sense of going to hell in a hand basket approach, nothing could be further from the truth,” Mr Sinclair continued.

“We’re falling back into old habits that were effective in the past when we were a monopoly, but can’t be considered effective today. What we have to do is compete better. That’s what we have to do.... The focus has to be on how we compete more, and more effectively. I don’t think our entire business has enough experience at it. Our union partners only have experience in a monopoly environment.”