PILOTS CALL OFF STRIKE

The Leeward Island Airline Pilots Association (LIALPA) has abandoned its threat to take industrial action following a high level meeting on Wednesday where an informal agreement was reached with the employer, LIAT.
The pilots had given LIAT’s management until midnight (Wednesday) to pay the pilots’ salaries or they would have staged protest action for several days, beginning today.
President of LIALPA Captian Carl Burke said an agreemment, which addressed the concerns of the pilots, was made during the talks involving Labour Minister Steadroy “Cutie” Benjamin,  the association, LIAT’s management team, the representative of Antigua Barbuda Workers Union (ABWU) David Massiah, the airline’s lawyer Stacy Richards-Roach, and LIALPA’s lawyer Justin Simon QC.
“The informal agreement will go before the Industrial Court in Antigua, by way of a Consent Order on Monday. Both attorneys for LIAT and LIALPA will sign this agreement which would formalise what was discussed today,” Burke told OBSERVER media.
At the centre of the controversy is the failure by LIAT to implement a new salary structure for its ATR-72 pilots; general salary increases; and the pilots’ objection to a salary deferral system, among other outstanding matters.
LIALPA had argued that it entered into talks with LIAT since 2012 for the new ATR-72 salary scale and the company, since January 2017, had remained defiant and had evaded the agreement.
 
(More in today’s Daily Observer)