The dispute over unpaid severance for former Caribbean Airport Services (CAS) workers will head to the courts for final settlement, according to the Deputy Secretary General of the Antigua and Barbuda Workers Union (ABWU) Chester Hughes.
More than 60 ex-employees of the company have been awaiting more than EC$2 million in severance payments since March 2020 after what was then deemed a temporary lay-off.
“Since Covid, the workers of Caribbean Airport Services have been struggling, waiting on their payment of severance,” Hughes articulated. “On several occasions, we at the union would have contacted the management team and the board and asked them what is happening.”
CAS is an independent operator which provides support to airlines; when the pandemic hampered global travel it affected the company’s revenue streams. CAS’ 51 percent shareholder is LIAT with the remaining 49 percent owned by Barbadian firm Massy.
The fall of LIAT (1974) Ltd into administration and the prolonged pandemic did little to improve the financial health of CAS as it was already owed a significant debt by the regional airline.
But CAS remains in operation and currently has 77 members of staff in Antigua.
Hughes said that patience has run thin with CAS and that the company cannot expect to be “going about your business everyday” while person’s “lives are on hold”.
“The time is up, and we will be contacting our lawyers because the same treatment we gave them for Jolly Beach Corporation, it is the same treatment we are advancing to CAS where we are going to the High Court to seek an order on this matter,” he explained.
Hughes said that the union’s attorneys will be contacted over the next few days.
“These workers cannot continue to be owed millions and interest building up, and we said to the company, look, even give the workers $500 a week, $100 a week, give them something to liquidate the money,” the Deputy Secretary General explained.
The workers received lay-off letters following a memo on March 25 2020, which informed them that a reduction in flights by most of the company’s airlines had forced it to minimise employment costs.
The workers had initially been told that the lay-off would last for four months beginning April 1 and that they should return to work in August. However, in July they were given the option to accept severance or wait another three months to start work.
