C&W cutting 300 more jobs CABLE & WIRELESS yesterday started making the jobs of 300 employees redundant in its second major job-cut exercise in four months. The cuts are part of a rationalisation programme that the company says is aimed at improving efficiency and profitability. A number of employees working in the Finance Department, Retail Services, Residential Installation, Customer Care, and others working as telephone operators, technicians, drivers, office attendants and ancillary workers are to lose their jobs. This was confirmed Lambert Brown, vice-president of the University and Allied Workers' Union (UAWU) which represents about 180 of the employees. According to Mr. Brown, resulting from the rationalisation, C&W offices in Linstead, St. Ann's Bay, and the Mall in downtown, Kingston are to be closed. The utility's New Kingston cellular and land lines offices are to be merged, Mr. Brown said. However, a source at Cable & Wireless said yesterday that four offices were to be closed but was unable to say which ones. Meanwhile, the UAWU vice-president said although the union wasn't fully satisfied with how the redundancies were being carried out, there has been dialogue between the company and the union compared to the previous similar exercise in which 300 employees were sent home. Mr. Brown added that the development of technology has reduced the functions of some C&W employees, and he said he wasn't viewing the job-cuts as negative. He said he was urging workers to use their skills to become entrepreneurs. A date for redundancy payments has not been announced. Meanwhile, Errol Miller, public relations manager at the telephone company, told The Gleaner yesterday that C&W does not expect to cut its staff by a similar magnitude any time soon. "It's part of the company's rationalisation programme to increase cost-efficiency. The company has been indicating that it would have been in this mode for the last two years," he said. He said C&W president Gary Barrows has assured that "while there might be other minor adjustments as the company moves forward, this is expected to be the last major redundancy of this size." In April, 300 workers comprising of at least 102 persons from the Retail Services, including the business offices, and 74 from the Network Services, including technicians and maintenance workers, were made redundant. In that same month, the company decided to close down its Transport, Maintenance and Repairs Division and out-source the service. The entire exercise is part of a multi-national rationalisation programme throughout the Caribbean. The UAWU represented 193 of the affected workers and the National Workers' Union (NWU) 17. Three were members of the Jamintel and Allied Staff Association (JAMASA), and 85 were supervisors represented by the Executive Staff Association (ESA).
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