Over 50 former Fly Jamaica Airways workers met with representatives of the Department of Labour yesterday on severance payments owed to them.
However, many subsequently voiced their disappointment with the engagement, calling it a “waste of time,” as they said they were asked to submit individual statements to the department.
The meeting commenced around 11.45 am and lasted for more than an hour.
“We got no progress… we submitted complaints to the ministry since we saw the redundancy letter in March and the next working day we came here and made complaints. I even came here last week because I wanted to know what was going on,” one of the former workers, who did not want to be named, told Stabroek News after leaving the meeting early.
The woman who worked with the company for more than five years, related that the Labour Department is now asking the former workers to submit individual statements to the department.
“I left early because it didn’t make any sense,” the woman said, while emphasising that up to yesterday she had not received an individual letter about her termination from her job and that she was only made aware of it by the reports in media and from seeing a general letter circulated on social media.
“They said that persons who were made redundant from March 31st they will be able to work their cases,” she said, before adding that nothing was said about the ones who left in November.
Teasha Corbin, who had been at Fly Jamaica for more than six years and was a Senior Cabin Crew Member, also related to this publication that the meeting was very disappointing. She noted that she and the other former workers were under the impression that they were going to meet the Minister within the Ministry of Social Protection with responsibility for Labour, Keith Scott or the Chief Labour Officer, Charles Ogle.
However, it was to their surprise that they only met with Labour Advisor Francis Carryl, a labour officer, and an attorney at law.
“Today we expected that the Minister would’ve met with us and have something positive to say to us regarding some help for the company or regarding our monies that Fly Jamaica owed to us. However, we learnt today that they have no proper knowledge of the whole issue at hand. Fly Jamaica crashed on November 9th. We are now in June and this Ministry is saying to Fly Jamaica employees that they have no understanding of the matter at hand,” Corbin said, while noting that she has no idea of what is going to happen going forward.
Stabroek News tried to solicit a comment from Scott, who was seen leaving while the meeting was in progress, but he said that he was not in charge of the matter and that it was being handled by Ogle. Stabroek News also saw Carryl after the meeting and he related that he had no comment to make and that it is “a work in progress.”
Corbin noted that they were told that the meeting was convened so that the ministry could get statements from the workers to possibly take the matter to court. However, she noted that she and many other former workers had previously made complaints to the department.
“I can say for sure the security department made several complaints. My department has been patient but if this ministry is going to take us off of our routine to tell us that they don’t have no knowledge when employees have come here and made several statements is a waste of time,” Corbin added.
She said she was last paid in November even though she has worked until March this year and is hoping that the government would give Fly Jamaica the assistance they need to help pay the outstanding monies to the employees.
Another former worker, Gem McCamley, who had been working with the company for more than a year, said that she was also very disappointed that they didn’t get close to the result they were expecting from the meeting.
“They are now looking to contact the relevant officials to get a statement and once they get a hold of somebody they will start the process. Most of us have bills to pay and families to take care of. We were hoping to get some of the answers today but we are nowhere near that at this moment,” she said, while noting that the statements from the former employees will be done during the week.
Another former worker, Ian Husbands, who had been an Aviation Security Agent for more than four years at the company, said that he is owed more than $500,000 and is appealing to the relevant authorities to quickly address the matter as persons who are without jobs are struggling.
While some of the former employees were able to find new employment, the majority of them are still without jobs.
The staff also expressed concern over the lack of individual records and original documentation that they would need in the event that the matter is taken to court.
“If we don’t have any letters or original documents to show anything, then it’s not going to stand up in court,” one of them said.
On March 29th, the company announced that due to the lack of aircraft and the impact it has had on its financial position, it had no alternative but to make all employees redundant, effective from March 31st, 2019.
They airline also owes customers whose flights were cancelled in wake of last November’s crash landing of a Fly Jamaica plane at the Cheddi Jagan International Airport and last month head of the Guyana Civil Aviation Authority, Egbert Field, had related that officials from the company had met with the Consumers Affairs Department of the Ministry of Business and had made a commitment to refund all monies. The airline was also decertified last month in Kingston, Jamaica, and according to Field, as a result, it was also decertified here in Guyana.
