State Insurance sit-in ends

A meeting will be held today before Maureen Hyman, the parliamentary secretary in the ministry of Labour, to address the concerns of line staff at State Insurance Corporation who yesterday ended three days of protest action.
Staff returned to work after taking industrial action since Monday over a salary increase.
Shop Stewart Robert Joshua said that for over two years negotiations have been ongoing between the Corporation and the union representing the workers, however, the employees are not satisfied with the results.
“Based on communication we received we are of the opinion that State Insurance was not acting in good faith and as such, we decided to take industrial action as of Monday,” he said. “The major concern is salary, they recommended eight percent over three years.”
He said the workers had been reporting for duty, but, refused to do their jobs as part of the sit-in action.
Joshua said the protest ended with the understanding that today’s meeting,  scheduled for 9 a.m., will yield positive results for the workers.
He said that close to 50 staff members were in support of the action.
“The line staff is usually the ones that interact with the customer and considering you have the majority of the line staff not dealing with any customers you can give your own perception of (how we were affected),” he said.
Noting that State Insurance is an indigenous company, Joshua asked the public to continue to support the entity even as workers lobby for better salaries.
The Antigua Trades and Labour Union represents the staff.