Antigua and Barbuda Prime Minister Gaston Browne has appealed to Caribbean trade unions to re-think their position regarding the latest offer made to laid-off workers of the cash-strapped regional airline, LIAT.
Browne said what is required is the cooperation of the unions, noting that “some union leaders…are making unreasonable demands, making demands in which they have no legal basis to do.
‘As I have said to the other unions if they really think they are owed 100 per cent of their severance and staff liabilities, go to court and prove it. If they can’t prove it then the governments are giving you a compassionate payment, take it and run.”
The airline had laid off an estimated 90 per cent of its staff last year as part of a restructuring exercise and has resumed operations on a much smaller scale.
Earlier this month, President of the Dominica-based Waterfront and Allied Workers Union (WAWU), Donald Rolle, said that the regional unions are united in seeking the millions of dollars owed to the workers and have rejected the latest offer from the shareholder governments.
“The offer on the table which is to pay the LIAT workers, 50 per cent of their redundancy pay and there is a component that involves compensation by issuing of lands and bonds. But the unions around the Caribbean have sort of rejected that in its entirety, but we are in negotiations with the governments. We have a position and as it is now, we are at opposite ends of the table,” Rolle said.
But speaking on the Grenada Broadcasting Network’s (GBN) Beyond the News” programme on Monday night, Browne, said that a meeting was held recently with the pilot’s association “and they were more amenable to striking a deal with the Antiguan government, but as we said to them, we have to get all the unions support.
“I mean, legally, none of the shareholding governments has any liability to the staff. As you know the shareholding of the governments would have been limited to the extent of their shareholding. The Antiguan government for example, pumped hundreds of millions of dollars into LIAT over the years and I would accept it had economic benefits, but at the end of the day we would have lost a few hundred million dollars that we pumped into LIAT over the decades.
“In terms of any legal liability, arising from the collapse of LIAT the governments do not have any such liability and it is well known that LIAT’s assets are such that if you sell them on a piecemeal basis in liquidation, they may only get about five per cent of their severance liabilities,” the Antigua and Barbuda Prime Minister told television viewers there.
He said the if the Antigua and Barbuda government is ‘offering as much as 50 per cent that is an extremely lucrative deal, in the sense that it is a superior deal to liquidating (LIAT) 74 and selling off the assets on a piecemeal basis”.
Browne said that even three planes now owned by the restructured LIAT “they are charged to the Caribbean Development Bank and the loans that the governments are carrying…the balance on those loans exceed the value of the planes. So there is no equity in order to pay severance”.
He said that in the case of Antigua and Barbuda, if the island was liable based on its 35 per cent shareholding “it would have meant that the liability would have been 35 per cent” reiterating that the latest offer to the trade unions is a lucrative one “and I don’t know why the union leaders do not recognise that they do not have a legal leg to stand, they can’t force the government to give them anything.
“We are doing this on a compassionate basis and if they take the 50 per cent from Antigua and Barbuda and the other governments chip then, then they may make it up to 100 per cent. But asking the Antigua and Barbuda government to pay 100 per cent, I mean that is neither morally or legally equitable.
“Our offer stands at 50 per cent and we are just waiting on them to come to a consensus among themselves to accept the offer,” he added.
The airline is owned by the governments of Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Dominica and St Vincent and the Grenadines (SVG). Last year, Browne said that a decision had been taken that would allow Barbados and SVG to turn over their shares in LIAT to Antigua & Barbuda for one EC dollar (One EC dollar=US$0.37 cents).
During the GBN programme, Browne said that LIAT, under administration, had returned an operational profit for the months of July and August and that there is also evidence that a leaner, more efficient LIAT can be profitable.
“It has been operating on a limited schedule. The demand for air travel is still very weak at this time. However, it is providing a service. LIAT is still alive, obviously not in the best of health. It appears at some point we will have to commence a new LIAT, probably a LIAT 2020, 2021 and collapse the old LIAT.
“But at the end of the day we need sustainable air transportation in order to ensure reliable connectivity within the Caribbean region and I am of the view that LIAT could be salvaged and in fact we would have proven so because during the months of July and August, LIAT…operating one plane at a time would have turned an operational profit and it has over 11 individuals employed throughout the region”.
Asked by a caller about the reluctance of some regional governments in the past to get involved in the financing of the airline, Browne said this was due to a number of factors, including insularity and a culture of freeloading.
“We are of the view that we should have a policy of shared burden, shared benefits, but unfortunately with some of these regional institutions, some countries are just looking for a free ride.
‘Antigua and Barbuda has its problems too…but we need to put some form of mechanism, perhaps automaticity of payments for these institutions to sustain them, otherwise we are going to find more and more of our regional institutions failing.
“We can’t have a situation which we continue to leave a small cadre of countries with the burden of our institutions,” Browne said, making reference to the financial problems facing the University of the West Indies (UWI) which he believes all countries should have some automaticity of payments towards.
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Something telling me this guy likes the sound of his own voice ( take it and run) what those workers should have done every since is to file for all the assets to be frozen an even grounded the planes from flying until the court has decided and as we all know no with all the paperwork these cases take time and maybe after some months of tied up in the court system dictator Brown would understand it’s not just about him but all those workers it’s time they came forward and be recognise and make something happen and stop waiting for something to happen.( WAY OVERDUE )
I hope all LIAT employees are registered to vote. The clock is ticking.
I am a former LIAT worker who worked hard for many years and am entitled to my severance!! My family, friends and acquaintances will never vote for this arrogant PM who is using his bully pulpit to try and get me and my former coworkers to sign on to some stupid agreement which calls for us to give up any claim to our full severance. Just so that he can start up a new LIAT without any debt including severance. Gaston wants to transfer the assets from the old LIAT to a new one but he cannot do so if the old LIAT doesn’t pay the workers their severance. Shame shame !
PM is there no way that you can settle this directly with the workers and forget about the unions. Cause it seems that they are hell bend to take this thing to court, lose and have the workers many years without a dime.
@ eniledis. they are already going years without a dime so
what’s to lose against 4th REICH
Years? LIAT only closed down about two years. Stanford employee waited for nine years. And not all of them got paid. Only those working for the offshore bank and the Development Company. The rest still holding up their hands. You can continue encouraging stupidness. There is no legal obligation by a shareholder to pay anything more than the company’s assets can afford. And it has been said many times. LIAT has not Assets to satisfy its debt to the employees. The Government may give a compassionate payment to the employees.
I have to disagree with the PM on this one. The people have worked so the must be paid 100% what is due to them. They can be paid 50% now and 50% at a later date.
All workers MUST be paid 100% of what is due. This applies to workers worldwide. Period.
You know no matter how you try to educate people on a particular topic, if they have already made up their mind there is nothing you can do. I wish Lawyers like Tabor would use their knowledge to educate rather than to mislead. Company Laws are clear on this. A Shareholder is only liable for the debt of the company up to the amount of his shareholding. That is why banks make sure they read the balance sheet carefully to see the risk of lending. When LIAT wanted to borrow money from the CDB the Shareholders had to underwrite the loan. Because CDB saw the risk was too great to be carried by the company. The unions should have been doing the same. Reading and understanding the Balance Sheet and seeing the risk that the Staff Severance in WCS was under. When you wait till it all falls down it is too late. LIAT was Bankrupt years ago. The staff knew that. The fight the keep LIAT flying was being fought a long time. A few persons were lucky to get severed some years ago. Now maybe the unions think you can go to court and get a judge to hold the shareholder accountable for the debt of the company like the CDB had them signed. I don’t know. Perhaps they can argue that the shareholders who also had appointed their own public servants to sit on board and therefore by extension run the airline into the ground and are indirectly responsible for the liabilities. I don’t know. But I know that fight will be a very long fight. Because a president for that is not yet set. Not that I know. Usually, the board of directors of a company carries Fiduciary responsibility. For that reason, they cover themselves against liabilities. Directors and Officers Insurance. If it can be proven that the board acted improper and therefore can be held accountable and responsible for the downfall of LIAT than we may have a situation on our hand where the shareholder governments are held accountable and responsible for the liabilities of LIAT as they indirectly influenced the policies of the company and therefore, they will lose the protection under the companies Act.
So, I say lets go to court and find out who is right. See you in five years. At the Privy Council. or the CCJ
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