Boxing plant workers demand compensation by weekend

Five men who were employed at the Langley Park boxing plant say that if they do not receive their severance pay by the end of this week, they will picket the office of their union, the Commercial, Technical and Allied Trade Union (CTAWU).

The men, stackers at the boxing plant {{more}}up until it closed in November 2010, told SEARCHLIGHT last Friday that they are being given the “run-around” by Joseph Burns Bonadie, acting general secretary of the union.

The men said last Friday, they were invited to visit the union’s office to receive their money, but when they got there, Bonadie was nowhere to be found.

“Between 2010 and now we have been in contact with him about 15 times and he keep telling we to come back and now he is hiding from we,” Vandyke Williams, spokesman for the group said.

“Last week (May 23), he told us to come back because the PS was supposed to sign some document so that we could get our money.

“We visit him down by the office; when we call the man, he answer he phone then take it off when he hear our voice,” Williams added.

The men who come from Langley Park, Rabacca, and Overland said that they have visited Bonadie multiple times since they were terminated.

According to the men, on their previous visit, the union official wrote a cheque for $250, after they complained that they had no money to return to their homes. They say they consider this move by Bonadie an admission of guilt, and an insult.

Williams indicated that they had been employed at the plant since it began operations in 2001, and other persons who were employed with WIBDECO received their packages when it closed in 2010, and since the closure of the boxing plant, the only money they have seen is the cheque that Bonadie wrote recently.

“We used to be there all hours of the night, till morning sometimes, nonstop. We were working there since the boxing plant open in November 2001 and it closed after the hurricane. We giving him another week,” one of the workers said.

The men told SEARCHLIGHT if they are not paid by the end of this week, the union offices will be picketed.

When SEARCHLIGHT contacted Bonadie, he indicated that he was not giving the men a run- around, and that he had already explained that the money due to them was soon to come.

“I told them that the Ministry of Agriculture just submitted a proposal for funding and that they will get their payments; so, right now we are waiting on the Ministry. Nothing can happen overnight.

“I got payment for them before, and I will get payment for them again. We will try to see if we can get the matter finalized,” Bonadie said.

Bonadie denied that he was, at any time, trying to evade the men, and said that he had been busy making arrangements for the persons who were left without work when Bottlers St Vincent Ltd closed down two years ago.(JJ)