By Balford Henry, News Editor
JUTC bus crews yesterday discuss news of the retrenchment at their dispatching station at Church Street, downtown Kingston. - Michael Sloley /Freelance Photographer
SOME 300 employees of the state-owned Jamaica Urban Transit (bus) Company (JUTC) are to be sent home next week, as the first phase of a retrenchment based on recommendations made by Swedish experts comes into effect.
Bus crews were informed yesterday at a meeting at the Lyndhurst Road depot in Kingston with the University and Allied Workers' Union (UAWU), which represents them, that 10% of the conductors and 3% of the drivers would lose their jobs. Also, 40% of the inspectors/dispatchers, several cleaners and janitors as well as middle managers will be let go.
A company source would not comment on the details revealed to the unions, but admitted that 300 workers would lose their jobs at this stage of the retrenchment.
Clifton Grant, second vice-president of the UAWU, said the 300 would be affected in the first phase of retrenchment, and a larger group was likely to be sent home by the end of February. The target is to bring down the worker-to-bus ratio from 8:1 to 6:1. The UAWU represents about 2,500 of the 3,000 JUTC employees.
The retrenchment should have started this week, but was delayed after the UAWU asked for a postponement to discuss the developments with its members. The first of the union's series of meetings took place yesterday at Lyndhurst Road. Other meetings are scheduled for Ashenheim Road, Kingston, today; Portmore, south St. Catherine, tomorrow; and at the Spanish Town head office, central St. Catherine, on Friday.
After these meetings, both unions representing employees of the company, the UAWU and the National Workers' Union's affiliated Union of Clerical, Administrative and Supervisory Employees (UCASE), which represents supervisors, will meet with the management at on Monday. At this meeting, the management is expected to announce the date of the separations.
But, the workers will not have to wait that long to find out who are leaving. The list should be handed to the unions by Friday.
Mr. Grant described yesterday's first workers' meeting, from which the media was barred, as "cordial", but he said the workers were angry and concerned about their future and felt that the company's poor financial state was mainly due to mismanagement at the top and middle.
The state-owned bus company was declared "technically insolvent," by a review done by KPMG Peat Marwick, the management consulting firm, in July 2002.
In August, a 28-point agreement was signed between the management and UAWU, covering the period January 1, 2002 to March 31, 2004. It granted drivers, conductors, mechanics, bus washers and groundsmen a four per cent increase for the period ending March 31, 2003. Negotiations on the second year's agreement, April 1, 2003 to March 31, 2004 were scheduled to start this month.
Two vice-presidents, Dr. Alton Fletcher, Human Resources, and John Campbell, Engineering Services, left at the beginning of the year.
UCASE spokesman, Danny Roberts, has requested that the Auditor-General investigate the company's operations.
