Fiji Trades Union Congress General Secretary, Felix Anthony says they are not doing anything wrong in supporting the 180 ATS workers because the Federated Airlines Staff Association is an affiliate of the FTUC.
Anthony maintains that the union did not call the ATS walkout on December 16th because the workers were called for a shareholders meeting by the ATS Employees Trust.
The FTUC General Secretary maintains that ATS locked out the workers after they came back from the meeting.
He says the Prime Minister should stop the blame game as Anthony stresses that the FTUC will continue to stand by the ATS workers as they believe in workers’ rights.
When asked by Fijivillage on whether it is right for the ATS workers to walk off their workstations during their working hours, Felix Anthony said this is not an issue for the union.
When asked again on whether workers can walk off their jobs at anytime, he said it would be okay if the board and management are not listening to the workers.
Anthony says if the situation demands, then the ATS workers can walk off their workstations as shareholders and he sees nothing wrong with that because they also own 49% of the company.
He has also stressed that FTUC will not support the 180 workers signing the Return to Work letters as this means that the workers are accepting that they did something wrong.
Anthony maintains that the workers have done nothing wrong and they cannot give any assurance at this stage that the walkout will not happen again.
Anthony says the assurance can only come at board level between the government and ATS Employees Trust.
He also says that he is not getting any political gain from this and there are many people who are coming out to support the workers for no gain.
