The Clerical and Commercial Workers’ Union (CCWU) is threatening industrial action over the state-owned GTV’s termination of 12 workers earlier this week.

CCWU President Roy Hughes says GTV 11 violated the Termination of Employment and Severance Pay Act by failing to consult with the union about the redundancies, though the company maintains it followed proper procedures.

A meeting is planned with the company’s management for next Tuesday to discuss the issue.

“You can rest assured that if things don’t work out in the interest of the workers who are there, we will definitely have industrial action,” Hughes told reporters at a press conference yesterday.

The union on Tuesday accused the state-owned TV station of acting arbitrarily to terminate seven workers from its Linden branch and five others from its head office in Georgetown.

But GTV General Manager, Mohammed Sattaur responded the same day by saying the union had been advised of the redundancies since May, and were provided with a list of the positions that would be affected.

Hughes said yesterday that on May 2 the union had received a letter from GTV management advising of the company’s plans to reorganise.

On May 6 it replied and later requested the names of the workers to be terminated and other relevant information. At a subsequent meeting a list of positions to be terminated was given to the union which was also told that 22 posts would be eliminated and ten new posts created as part of the reorganisation.

“They said no details or discussions because they had to go to the Board for approval and after that [they would meet with the union to discuss redundancy.”

But he said the union never saw the reorganisation plan, no meeting was held and the workers received letters of redundancy and termination on Tuesday. Some workers were notified that they would be terminated with effect from October 31, while others like the chairperson of the Union branch, Sharon Paris, were dismissed with effect from the next day.

Hughes said the actions of GTV amounted to violations of the Termination of Employment Act, and as a result the union told its members to continue to report for work.

In addition, the union has said that it believes that the actions of GTV are to remove some union members from within the company. Hughes pointed out that prior to the termination of the workers GTV had been recruiting new employees to fill their posts at higher salaries, although the job content remained the same.

“They have been changing positions but job contents are still the same ...sales persons are now being called sales executives.”

When he was asked how the union planned to respond, Hughes said:

“We contemplated action today but put things on hold after management asked to meet. We don’t expect the issue to be finalised with one meeting... [but] you can rest assured that if things don’t work out in the interest of the workers who are there, we will definitely have industrial action.”

Meanwhile Sattaur again yesterday urged the union not to act in haste but to engage the company in negotiations, which he said could not be done through the media.

Commenting on the union’s position, he considered that it did not appreciate the nature of reorganisation which he said called for specialist positions that could not be filled by some workers.

He denied that there were attempts to weed out union members who he said were still represented on the company’s Board and were very prominent members of the staff.