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Update: Jamaica air traffic controllers stage vow to continue with industrial action
Air traffic controllers at Jamaica’s two international airports have vowed to continue protest and industrial action again this week despite a back to work order obtained by the island-nations’s Ministry of Labor issued Sunday.
The court issued injunction had mandated that members of Jamaica Air Traffic Controllers Association return to work immediately and cease all forms of industrial action. It has also restrained the association’s executive from instigating, causing, encouraging or continuing any form of industrial action for 28 days.
The Air Traffic Controllers Association president, Kurt Solomon, has insisted that protest plans have not been shelved and the details will be disclosed at a news conference scheduled for Monday.
“We had a plan to begin our protest on Monday, June 24, and we will effect that plan. We are going to start off by having a with a press conference to outline the specifics with regards to why we are taking the action that we are taking and how it will impact air travel over the next few days.
“Further to that, we anticipate that there will be some communication between ourselves and Jamaica Civil Aviation Authority, our employers, in relation to specific problems that existed over the years that we wish addressed,” he added.
The air traffic controllers association said the Portia Simpson-Miller administration may have been premature in obtaining the injunction against its members and that it will do little to settle the dispute between the group and the island-nation’s aviation authority.
“Especially given the fact that for the last three weeks we have demanded that the dialogue continue, but continue along a certain vein,” he said.
Jamaica’s air traffic controllers have staged a “sick-out” with majority of staff calling in sick over the weekend. The action followed a breakdown in talks between the air traffic controllers association and the country’s civil aviation authority over long-standing wage and benefits issues. -(CMC)
The workers last weekend reported sick for work forcing a contingency team to take control of critical operations. The industrial action followed a breakdown in talks between JATCA and the JCCA over long-standing wage and benefits issues. (CMC)