Letter sent to ABVO also sent to Prosecutor’s Office and Labor Department.
Airport:--- Workers of the Princess Juliana International Airport (PJIAE) have taken another step to get the ABVO union to annul the CLA they signed with their employer.
In a letter sent to the President of the ABVO union the workers has given the union five days in which they must annul and retract the Collective Labor Agreement they signed with their employer. The workers claimed that the shop stewards that negotiated the contract were not elected by them and they were not consulted prior to the signing of the CLA. Most of all they said a labor mediator was not involved in the negotiations when disagreements began with the workers and the ABVO.
A copy of the letter which was provided to SMN News states that the duties of the union is to safeguard and protect their rights and to fairly represent them. They further stated that the union violated the authorities given to them and is in breach of their duties since they signed a CLA which they considered to be fatal. They asked that union to reopen the CLA negotiations and if such is not done within the given time frame then they will fire the union and take legal actions against ABVO.
The workers states that in the event the ABVO decides to reopen the negotiations, then them must meet with the workers prior to start negotiating, in order for them to highlight the issues affecting the workers.
In a statement to SMN News the workers said they wanted to know if PJIAE paid out the unions, because at this moment they do not know who exactly the ABVO is representing. Further to that they said that the CLA’s that were signed in the past were all illegal since the workers never got the benefits that are due to them. The workers said that even though ABVO signed CLA’s in the past what they agreed upon was never given to the workers including the increase in salary scales. Further to that they said that PJIAE never had qualified persons in that could properly evaluate the workers. The workers further stated that only recently personnel was sent for proper evaluation training but those persons are not yet certified. “That means all the previous evaluations were done illegally, therefore there were a lot of violations of laws committed by management of PJIAE and they do owe the workers quite a large sum of monies. We mean business now because we will not be attending the meeting that the union call for on Monday unless they retract the CLA they signed recently. Besides that the union has to ensure that all monies that are owed to the workers for the past five years are paid off in full.
Click to see letter sent to ABVO
