Gumbs said at no time were they invited by the Government of St. Maarten or the NPNA on Curacao to update them on the transfer to PSS. However, the operations manager on St. Maarten read a letter that was sent by PSS to NPNA which outlined the working agreement during the transition period. Gumbs said to date the employees have no definite answer on their employment. Gumbs said the workers started the go-slow action because of the lack of information and the fact that government and PSS said the transfer of the workers would take place separately.
Gumbs said he requested a meeting with the director of PSS Denicio Richardson to discuss the predicament of the workers but he did not get a response. He said that he then requested a meeting with the Prime Minister to find out where the postal workers stand and how the negotiations were going with NPNA. He said the Prime Minister promised to get back to him since there was no final agreement in August 2011. Gumbs said he believes that the Prime Minister was misled to believe that the money gram generates a lot of monies. He said while there is a lot of money that passes through the Post Office. He said the money gram and e-zone cannot sustain the post office on St. Maarten. He said mail services dropped by 76% since electronic mail surfaced.
Gumbs said to date there is no agreement and a meeting was supposed to be held on Sunday afternoon but no one from the Prime Minister's cabinet showed up for the meeting. Gumbs further explained that NPNA no longer has the right to operate on St. Maarten since their concession expired since October 2010.
SMN News has been reliably informed that PSS is willing to have the transfer of the workers from NPNA but they are requesting that NPNA pay out all the workers for the years they worked for NPNA. The source said PSS does not believe they should take over the liabilities of the workers when there are no monies.
