Yahneake Sterling, Staff Reporter
Clive Dobson (left) president of National Workers' Union and Norman DaCosta (right) vice-president, attend a conciliation meeting between the union and Windalco at the Ministry of Labour in Kingston on Tuesday, March 7. - Rudolph Brown/Chief Photographer
THE WAGE settlement hammered out last week by Prime Minister-designate Portia Simpson Miller between the National Workers' Union (NWU) and alumina mining company Windalco could unwind.
"I have to get an assurance from Windalco, in writing, that they will not make any delegate redundant, before I sign the agreement on Thursday," Norman DaCosta, NWU vice-president told The Sunday Gleaner.
According to Mr. DaCosta, Windalco's senior management personnel are disgruntled with the final agreement, and have threatened to make some workers redundant. He argued that if this were to be done, it could be considered as union busting and it would undermine the efforts made by his team to resolve the issue.
ALLEGATIONS DISMISSED
But yesterday, Michael Collins, managing
director of Windalco, dismissed DaCosta's allegations: "We have been looking at redundancies because of our cost situation, but due to negotiations with the new labour agreement, we are way behind in terms of executing our redundancy programme."
Late last year Windalco announced that it would cut its workforce by approximately 100 due to industry-wide and plant-specific economic factors.
Yesterday, DaCosta dismissed reports that the approximately one and a half year of retroactive payments to Windalco's unionised employees would be exempt from income tax.
