Dionne Rose, Staff Reporter
NORMALITY HAS returned at Alumina Partners' (Alpart) Nain, St. Elizabeth, plant following the intervention of the Ministry of Labour and Social Security, which got a court injunction to block supervisory staff at Alpart from going on strike this morning.
Norman DaCosta, vice-president of the National Workers Union (NWU), which represents the majority of the workers, told The Gleaner yesterday that the Union of Technical, Administrative and Supervisory Personnel (UTASP) would be observing the court injunction, which expires in 30 days.
"UTASP has indicated that they will respect the injunction ... but that they will reserve the right to reinstate a strike notice at the end of 30 days if the matter is not satisfactorily resolved," he said.
UTASP had served a strike notice on Alpart on Thursday night, when there was no agreement on two outstanding issues from last Saturday's conciliatory talks at the Labour Ministry last Monday.
MATTERS IN CONTENTION
The two issues are the company's participation in medical assistance for retired workers, and the union's demand for the removal of two managers -Administrative Director, Robert McKay and Human Resource Manager, Carlton Fearon.
But following UTASP's threat, Darrel Harriman, general manager at Alpart, said on the weekend that the company had begun to shut down operations at its plant in St. Elizabeth.
Mr. Harriman said it takes about 72 hours to implement a complete shutdown of the plant and that the decision to close the plant was taken in order to protect the facility and ensure that the company could safely restart at a later date.
Mr. Dacosta said that UTASP and Alpart would be going back to the Industrial Disputes Tribunal (IDT) on Tuesday and the NWU at the local level on Wednesday to complete wage negotiations.
Both unions have been negotiating with the company for the past 11 months for a new wage and fringe benefits agreement.
The unions are lobbying for a 20 per cent increase in the first year (in line with inflation) and another 20 per cent in the second year. However, the company is offering a 25 per cent increase over three years.
