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3.    The Daily Observer of Friday August 27, 1999 [Editorial]

The FedEx Skedaddle

FedEx (Federal Express (Antigua) Ltd), the Miami-based international courier service provider, on Wednesday shut down their Long Street operations in St. John's after a 12-year spree aboard the proverbial gravy train.  Yes, after more than twelve delicious years of profit reaping, the fat international messenger chose to close up shop and fly off into the sunset (or, is it sunrise) rather than meet with the bargaining agent of dissatisfied employees to address their legitimate grievances.

The trouble at FedEx started when workers walked off the job a week ago today, in sympathetic solidarity with three fellow employees, whose fortnightly wage had been docked a day's pay for being absent from work due to illness.  The Labour Code provides that a worker is entitled to payment of wages in full for two consecutive days' absence due to uncertified sickness.  According to Chester Hughes AWU representative, FedEx had no lawful grounds for withholding the employees' full pay under the circumstances.  And, instead of doing, not what the union demanded, but what the law requires of them, namely: to pay the three workers their wages for the one day they were off work because of sickness, FedEx decided to brazen it out, to flout the law and, finally, to close up shop and, as they say, split the scene.

That relations between management and employees have been under strain since five of FedEx's eleven employees joined the Antigua Workers Union in December, 1998 comes as no surprise.  FedEx's antipathy towards unions is legendary throughout the United States and all over the 211 countries in which they operate world-wide.

What surprises us, is that FedEx chose to skedaddle rather than to comply with the law of the land.  Their attitude is somewhat akin to other foreigners who come here to do business with us and among us, and would rather corruptly lobby the administration for changes in law that would suit their narrow, selfish purposes than to comply with existing laws which have proved beneficial for the majority of those who live and have lived under it.

FedEx, not unlike any other entrepreneur who came after them, knew of the existence of the Antigua Workers Union (AWU) and the Antigua Trades and Labour Union (AT & LU) when they came to do business in this country over twelve years ago.  They also knew that there was a Labour Code in which was set out, in unambiguous terms, the rights and correlative responsibilities of employers with their employees.  FedEx, as employer, had as much right in attempting to keep out the unions as the employees had to peacefully agitate for unionisation.  But once the union was in the door, that should have been the end of the matter, so far as the matter concerned FedEx.  Their duty as employer was to negotiate with the union in good faith.  But their hatred of unions needlessly blinded them to the fact that withholding their employees' sick pay had nothing whatsoever to do with the union but rather constituted a clear violation of the Labour Code.  Now the Nation's unemployment figure has increased by eleven, thanks to multinational bullheadedness.

It is just as well.  Those who are not prepared to abide by the law of this country should move on.  Don't threaten anyone, just move on.


4.    The Daily Observer of Friday, August 27, 1999

Labour Commissioner Blasts FedEx,
Calls Departure Outrageous

Labour Commissioner Austin Josiah called FedEx's (Federal Express Antigua Ltd.) swift closure and pull out of local operations "unbelievable, outrageous and unprecedented."

FedEx closed abruptly on Wednesday, August 25, after being embroiled in a week-long controversy with its eleven employees over the company's refusal to pay sick benefits and recognize the workers' bargaining agents, the Antigua Workers Union.

At a press conference yesterday, the Commissioner stated that the behaviour of the multinational courier service provider is an "affront  to Antigua and Barbuda."  He said that the company should not expect to close down the business, offer to pay severance to its employees and "then believe this is it."

"Acceptance of such gross misconduct . . . would obliterate the 'dignity of Labour' in the brutish power of authoritarian capitalist dictatorship," he said.

The Antigua and Barbuda Human Rights Association (HRA) also had condemning words for FedEx.

HRA Public Relations Officer Raymond Simon said that FedEx's actions were "an insult to the Constitution, and the Labour Commissioner and violated the International Labour Organisation's (ILO)  right of freedom of association."

He urged that government take a stand against FedEx who should be made to obey the laws and Constitution and completely rescind their action and to thoroughly investigate the relationship between FedEx and Parcel Plus, the authorized agents for Federal Express.  (continued)