The General Secretary of the Antigua and Barbuda Workers’ Union (ABWU), David Massiah, has called for the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) governments to seriously get involved in the efforts to rescue the cash-strapped regional airline, LIAT Limited, following its collapse in 2020.

“All the governments in the Caribbean are hypocritical and they are bastardising the process with the LIAT workers. They should all sit together and come up with one plan to govern all the workers throughout LIAT and so we could get LIAT, the regional airline, back in the air,” said Massiah.

He also indicated that he had written to Gaston Browne, prime minister of Antigua and Barbuda, last week and was still awaiting a response.

The airline was forced to end its operations and lay off its staff in March 2020 after the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic exacerbated its financial issues. Last year, the Antigua and Barbuda government offered EC$2 million to partially satisfy the cash component of the compassionate payout to former LIAT workers in Antigua.

In August, Dominica Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit said he wanted a ‘humanitarian’ resolution to settle the ongoing pay dispute.

Meanwhile, just last month, the St Lucia government said former LIAT workers there would soon receive their outstanding termination benefits.

The government said EC$4.4 million in outstanding benefits will be paid to the former workers.

Earlier this month, Browne told Parliament that the union’s insistence on receiving 100 per cent payment for its workers has been an impediment in discussions, describing the union’s stance as “extremely unreasonable”.

LIAT, which is owned by the governments of Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Dominica and St Vincent and the Grenadines, owes millions of dollars to its former employees, including pilots, who through their unions have been demanding the payments owed.

Massiah, speaking with the media on Monday (December 12), said while he appreciated a proposal by St Lucia Prime Minister Phillip J Pierre, to make the offer to former LIAT workers in his homeland, he should have instead come to Browne “and say, ‘Look guys, let us sit down and talk'”.

“Skerrit of Dominica would have indicated months ago that this is a moral obligation by the governments of the region to ensure that the LIAT workers are treated fairly. But none of them has done anything,” Massiah said.

“Let me say this. Whilst I can fight the prime minister of Antigua and Barbuda on the way how he is handling it, I am saying that all of the leaders in the Caribbean should come together to deal with the issue of LIAT and its workers,” he continued.

In July 2020, the High Court in Antigua granted a petition allowing for the reorganisation of the cash-strapped regional airline, the appointment of an administrator as well as staying all proceedings relating to the liquidation of the company.