This country’s largest public sector trade union is calling on the Government to follow St Lucia’s lead by settling the outstanding severance payments of its nationals who were terminated by LIAT more than two years ago.On Tuesday, St Lucia’s Prime Minister Philip Pierre told Parliament that Cabinet had approved some EC$4.4 million (US$1.6 million) to pay the severance of all former St Lucian non-management employees of LIAT (1974) Ltd.In response, the National Union of Public Workers (NUPW) which represents the former Barbadian pilots appealed to the Government to look beyond its lack of legal obligation to the employees and pay them given their significant contribution to intra-Caribbean travel and the regional integration movement.“We appeal to the Government of Barbados as a shareholder of a regional airline that served us so well throughout the Caribbean to come forward and save these people. That is what we would ask. We would want the Government to see it as the right thing to do,” urged the union’s Deputy General Secretary Wayne Walrond in an interview with Barbados TODAY.
