Bavi­ta Gopaulchan

Se­nior Re­porter

bavi­ta.gopaulchan@guardian.co.tt

The T&T Air­line Pi­lots As­so­ci­a­tion (TTAL­PA) and the Avi­a­tion, Com­mu­ni­ca­tion and Al­lied Work­ers Union (ACAWU) have voiced grow­ing con­cern over job se­cu­ri­ty amid Caribbean Air­lines (CAL) route re­duc­tions and re­cent com­ments by Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar about turn­ing the air­line around with­in two years. The unions, how­ev­er, once again de­nied re­ports of im­pend­ing strike ac­tion.

Re­spond­ing to ques­tions from Guardian Me­dia, TTAL­PA chair­man Ja­son Wick­ham said the as­so­ci­a­tion is un­aware of any strike ac­tion be­ing planned by pi­lots or oth­er CAL em­ploy­ees. He not­ed that TTAL­PA and ACAWU pre­vi­ous­ly is­sued a joint state­ment ad­dress­ing the ru­mours.

“We are un­aware of any such ac­tion be­ing tak­en by our mem­bers and em­ploy­ees at CAL,” Wick­ham said.

ACAWU al­so dis­missed the claims, stat­ing that no strike ac­tion has been un­der­tak­en by its flight at­ten­dant body. In­stead, both unions said they have been en­gaged in a “pos­i­tive ed­u­ca­tion­al cam­paign” high­light­ing the im­por­tance of a na­tion­al and re­gion­al car­ri­er.

Re­cent­ly, ACAWU post­ed a video un­der­scor­ing the val­ue of a na­tion­al air­line. Wick­ham con­firmed that TTAL­PA shared the video, say­ing the unions be­lieve Caribbean Air­lines de­serves recog­ni­tion for what it rep­re­sents to Trinidad and To­ba­go, the wider re­gion and the di­as­po­ra.

ACAWU said the cam­paign goes be­yond na­tion­al pride, ar­gu­ing that a lo­cal­ly owned air­line is crit­i­cal for a twin-is­land state, en­sur­ing eco­nom­ic sta­bil­i­ty be­tween Trinidad and To­ba­go and across the re­gion. While ac­knowl­edg­ing the need for ef­fi­cien­cy, the union said prof­itabil­i­ty should not be the sole mea­sure of the air­line’s vi­a­bil­i­ty.

Both unions, how­ev­er, ac­knowl­edged that un­cer­tain­ty sur­round­ing CAL’s fu­ture has caused con­cern among work­ers. Wick­ham said pi­lots are “nat­u­ral­ly” wor­ried about job se­cu­ri­ty, par­tic­u­lar­ly in light of re­cent route re­duc­tions and the Prime Min­is­ter’s call for the air­line to im­prove per­for­mance with­in a two-year time­frame.

He added that TTAL­PA has writ­ten twice to the Prime Min­is­ter re­quest­ing a meet­ing to clar­i­fy the Gov­ern­ment’s in­ten­tions for the air­line and to raise con­cerns am­pli­fied by the route cuts.

ACAWU echoed those con­cerns, say­ing its mem­ber­ship—in­clud­ing flight at­ten­dants and gen­er­al staff—has grown in­creas­ing­ly anx­ious fol­low­ing the Prime Min­is­ter’s com­ments and man­age­ment’s de­ci­sion to re­duce routes. The union said man­age­ment has not yet di­rect­ly en­gaged ACAWU in dis­cus­sions.

Both TTAL­PA and ACAWU are call­ing for di­rect en­gage­ment with work­ers. Wick­ham said the unions be­lieve the CAL board and the Gov­ern­ment, at a min­i­mum through the line min­is­ter, should pro­vide em­ploy­ees with a “gen­uine au­di­ence” to ex­plain the com­pa­ny’s di­rec­tion and how staff could be af­fect­ed.

“The work­ers are key stake­hold­ers,” Wick­ham said, adding that such a re­quest is rea­son­able.

ACAWU sim­i­lar­ly stressed the need for di­a­logue, say­ing em­ploy­ees de­serve clar­i­ty on the course the air­line in­tends to take as it nav­i­gates its cur­rent chal­lenges.

Guardian Me­dia reached out to Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar on the unions’ con­cerns. Up to press time, there was no re­sponse on whether the Gov­ern­ment will meet with union rep­re­sen­ta­tives.