PHILIPSBURG:--- The President of ABVO St. Maarten Sharlon L.Cathalina, the labor union that is representing some of the workers of the Princess Juliana International Aiport (PJIAE) has penned a letter to the Chief Executive Officer Brian Mingo on August 28th, 2022 informing him that the only agreement the ABVO has with PJIAE is that the company complies with the Collective Labor Agreement that was signed between parties.
The ABVO letter is a letter of response from the CEO of PJIAE with the topic “settlement agreement”
According to the ABVO President PJIAE has not complied with the agreement and has been in default. The letter specifically states that PJAIE did not comply with the cost of living clause (art 502 CLA PJIAE-ABVO).
“Until today PJIAE has failed to annually implement the adjustment of the base salaries and the salary components since 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021 and 2022
PJIAE by not paying the correct salaries is in violation of the civil codebook VII art 1614p.”
ABVO in its letter demands that PJIAE stays in compliance with art 502 of our CLA and summons PJIAE to pay retroactively ultimately on September 30th, 2022 based on a correction of the base salaries and salary components from March 2018 until now, increased with the default interest (“vertragingsrente”) according to art 7A:1614q of the civil code until the day of compliance with the CLA.
As PJIAE wants to implement a 12.5% cut in the remunerations of the PJIAE workers without a mutual agreement with ABVO, ABVO is not in agreement with the unilateral decision of PJIAE management not to comply with the acquired rights according to the CLA for the years 2020, 2021 and 2022.
ABVO is of the opinion that the PJIA interpretation of the legislation of November 2021, that no increases are allowed in remunerations of PJIAE workers is debatable. We, therefore, claim adherence to our CLA as long as parties have not agreed to sign an amended or new CLA as stated in our letter of August 12, 2022.
To provide an alternative to the 12.5% cut in employment conditions ABVO would like to receive insight and a breakdown of the total cost of personnel. ABVO also wants to see how the maximization of higher incomes in the company will reduce the total personnel costs of PJIAE. Furthermore, ABVO would like to see the annual accounts for 2020, 2021, and the first half of 2022 to provide a responsible alternative proposal.
