PHILIPSBURG:--- President of the St. Maarten Communications Union (SMCU) Ludson Evers in a letter that based on rumors in the community he wants to raise awareness since the SMCU is also concerned about the rumors they have heard about TELEM CEO Kendall Dupersoy.
SMCU has been hearing some disturbing news where the CEO sign of a project to a company without it going through the process of bidding at the cost of NAF/$ 500.000/600.000.
SMCU also understood that the CTO was threatened by the CEO for him to co-sign the project while the CFO and the former COO refused to co-sign with the CEO.
SMCU don’t know how true is this allegation against the CEO, but if this is the truth SMCU finds it some serious allegation that the board of directors must take action against.
The reason why is that SMCU finds that the CEO is currently out of control where he doesn’t respect his colleagues in the management board, the CEO doesn’t adhere to the constitution of the company where he can’t only sign to a maximum of NAF 50.000.
SMCU don’t have the facts of the above mention allegation but have facts on the following situation that hampering the employees in the company in general.
1) The CEO decided to change the pension scheme from the employees from average pay which call define benefit DB to define contribution DC. This change was made without management and union sign a protocol where parties agreed with the change in the pension scheme. In the Collective Labor Agreement (CLA) it clearly indicates that since 2010 the pension scheme for the employees of SMTOC, the union try at several occasions to reason with the CEO where we try to explain that parties must reach an agreement before management make any changes.
This situation of the pension scheme is currently on its way to court and any damage the CEO have cost the employees is on the cost of the company.
2) The CEO also change the medical coverage from the employees, the employees were covered before on the medical policy from ENNIA for three years with the policy expiring ending 2017.
The policy was change from ENNIA to NAGICO which in principle is not a problem because it doesn’t matter the insurance company what matter is the coverage in the policy.
After the policy from NAGICO went in effect it came to play that some medical coverage the employees had with ENNIA is less in the NAGICO policy.
Again SMCU has tried to reason with the CEO and fail to have him cooperating. The CEO is of the opinion that SMCU should not receive the two policy to compare them and analyze where are all the medical coverage where the employees went backward.
In the meantime the employee's medical coverage went backward the employees remained paying the same amount in premium for less medical coverage, and when the employees' dependents are no longer part of the medical policy but yet the premium for the employees don’t change while the premium for the company yes will reduce.
SMCU will also take this matter to court because once the employees are a paying participant in the medical policy the employees have the right to a say in the policy and have the policy after the policy is in effect.
In response to the allegations CEO of TELEM Kendall Dupersoy said that it is against his better judgment that he respond to these false accusations by SMCU, however, he felt that he needed to clear the air as a local professional. “When I first got appointed as CEO of TELEM, the most important thing for me was to do a good job so that other locals get the opportunity to be in top management in the future. I was fully aware of the fact that I would be judged harsher than others because of my public profile and my past history. However, I refuse to allow people to drag me down with falsehoods. I have much better things to do but felt it was important to reply to these obviously personal attacks.”
I’m sending you this mail in my capacity as president of the St Maarten Communication Union (SMCU) I will like to bring the following to your attention.
You have to ask yourself how the Union got this information. It was not a union-related issue and only internal company information. The Servers in the organization are very old, some of them as much as 7 years and they no longer can handle the capacity of the programs. The funds were used to purchase new servers for the next 5 years with the possibility to upgrade. The old servers could crash at any time and TelEm would not be able to continue to operate. As CEO Dupersoy said he bears responsibility for the continuing operations of the company. It was a critical situation.
SMCU also understood that the CTO was threatened by the CEO for him to co-sign the project while the CFO and the former CCO refused to co-sign with the CEO.
This is a blatant lie. I never threatened anybody to sign anything. The former CCO is free to refuse if he sees fit. If someone is aware of the very serious situation of the current servers and refuse to sign to replace them, then they do not have the company’s best interest at heart. The former CCO didn’t refuse to sign, for clarity.
SMCU don’t know how true is this allegation against the CEO, but if this is the truth SMCU finds it some serious allegation that the board of directors must take action against.
Dupersoy asks what should the Board of Director's actions for “Take actions against the CEO for what? All required steps were taken in this project. The Union would do well to better represent their members and stop spreading rumors in an attempt to bully the CEO. The union has several documents in their possession that need to be commented on and they have yet to comment which is frustrating the progress of the company. The union should spend more time doing what unions are supposed to do, represent their members and stop spreading rumors and lies to try to discredit the CEO in an attempt to satisfy personal agendas. Their actions are childish and show a total disregard for their members. Since the CEO has been appointed, I have done everything in my power to treat the workers in a fair manner. All my interactions with staff and union have been transparent. This is not enough for SMCU, you have to bend over and do their bidding to satisfy them.”
