There could soon be a resolution to the dispute between the Bahamas Telecommunications Company (BTC) and the Bahamas Communications and Public Managers Union (BCPMU) over the termination of a top union official from the communications giant, revealed Labour Minister Shane Gibson Tuesday.
The parties have been at odds since BTC abruptly terminated Elizabeth Thompson from her position as a senior manager in the company’s legal department last October.
Ms. Thompson is also the vice president of the BCPMU.
After a series of talks between the union and BTC which eventually stalled, the minister intervened late last year and launched an investigation into the matter.
On Tuesday, Mr. Gibson advised that the government has honoured a request from BTC to provide its recommendations on the matter and he noted that those recommendations have been sent to the company and the government is expecting a response from BTC in the coming weeks.
“We finalised a position that we sent over to management last week,” he said. “They’d [BTC] had asked us to put a recommendation together and send it to them for consideration. We did that within the last two weeks and so hopefully they should be getting back to us pretty soon as to whether they agree with our position.”
BTC has insisted that its actions were legal and the company claims that it terminated Ms. Thompson after repeatedly warning her about her conduct which the company felt had become increasingly in conflict with the company’s interest.
However, the union has argued that Ms. Thompson was fired because of her position and involvement with the union which it argues breaches the union’s industrial agreement with BTC and the country’s labour laws.
Mr. Gibson did not reveal any details about the recommendations the government submitted to BTC, but he did express optimism that those recommendations should help to resolve the matter.
“We look at several case precedence where we thought would have helped them with settling this matter once and for all,” he said.
BTC is a privately-owned company with the government being a minority shareholder.
