Yesterday, 7News showed you the testy back and forth between Mayor Darrell Bradley and the media about the ongoing dispute surrounding imminent termination the 26 security workers, whose jobs are being made redundant.
While that conversation between the Bradley and the reporters got heated, CWU President Audrey Matura-Shepherd says that her meeting with him and the Labour Commissioner was very cordial.
She hosted a press conference this evening, and gave the media an update on that meeting from yesterday:
Audrey Matura Shepherd, President - CWU
"We know that for now the mayor has agreed that the terminations will not take effect until this Friday. We are in negotiations; we are telling him Friday is not enough to negotiate with him. The other update is that that of Couse information came to us because we had a meeting with the mayor yesterday with the councilor responsible for security Mr. Willoughby and 2 members of staff Ms. Nunez and Ms. Ursela. Both of them are administrators; one is the human resource officer and one is her assistant."
"What we found out was that there was a genuine, I would want to say at this point, a genuine mistake on behalf of the mayor where he is mistaken notice to terminate with the notice you have to give by law to the union. We explained it to the mayor, he was saying that when they had a strategic meeting in early 2013 that one of the problems they were looking at was even though there were security officers on duty, items were going missing and that security officers were reporting sick and so there bill on overtime was going high. So he said those were the circumstances and there were a list of things that they were complaining about the security officers and I said mayor when you say those things to me that's what they law envisioned as being the circumstances that exited that makes it necessary for you to declare redundancy. When you began having those problems as soon as possible from then you should have told the union or at least one month before you terminate these people."
"I am glad he is trying to do the job of the union but he has done a poor job at it because if he was really looking after the benefit of the workers he would not only look at whether they can be hired by the new company. It's not even guarantee they will be hired by the new company. But more importantly, if you were really looking after the workers, how can you tell workers that you are paying $4.48 and go work for that person for $3.50. Remember, if you are really looking out for the best interest of the council, the same security officers you just complain to us as being inefficient and incompetent you are telling the new company to hire these same inefficient and incompetent workers to guard the same council that you are trying to protect - I am trying not to make light of the issue."
At the time of that interview, According to Matura-Shepherd, she had a meeting with the security officers later in the evening.
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