MONTEGO BAY — Prime Minister P J Patterson yesterday told Sangster airport employees that there was no way they could expect pension payoffs and expect to still have their jobs when the new operator, MBJ Airports Ltd, takes control of the facility in March.

Patterson at the same time promised that the rights of workers will be protected in what he said would be a seamless transfer of Sangster to MBJ from the government’s Airports Authority of Jamaica.

“Everybody is going to be fully protected and that includes the handlers of baggage, the porters, taxi operators,” Patterson said at yesterday’s signing of the transfer agreements.

About 100 unionised employees on Tuesday demonstrated briefly at Sangster to press their demand to collect their pension contributions, even though they expected to retain their jobs with the consortium to which the Montego Bay airport is being divested.

Such a situation would normally be the case, lawyers said last night, the Airports Authority of Jamaica had made all employees redundant and the new operators had a pick of who it wanted to employ.

But Patterson said that legal teams from both sides examined the issue Tuesday and that the matter has now been firmly resolved.

“The employees who are retained will keep all their contractual and pension rights,” Patterson said. “But let me make it absolutely clear: You can’t expect redundancy payments and pension payments because the management is being transferred and yet expect to retain your job come March 1. It is one or the other!”

However, Transport Minister Robert Pickersgill conceded that there will be job losses after MBJ takes control of the facility. The international consortium, he said, will evaluate the staff over a three-month period and determine whose services will be retained.

It will then be up to the AAJ to terminate those employees and make redundancy payments, the minister said.

Employees whose services are retained will be employed in keeping with existing conditions as covered under the Employment (Termination and Redundancy Payments Act) 1974.

“With regard to trade unions, the concessionaire is obliged to comply with the trade union agreements in existence and, following an interim period of six months, enter into agreements with the unions,” Pickersgill explained. “The consortium will offer to transferring employees a pension fund on similar terms to that in force at the Airports Authority. The entitlements of employees under the existing pension fund will be transferred to the new fund.”

Tuesday’s protest by some unionised airport workers over the pension issue was the second public demonstration in Montego Bay so far this year and noting the damage such events could do to the tourism sector, Patterson urged a move away from demonstrations and towards dialogue.

“We want the thing (divestment) to be done without any unrest and any dislocation,” the prime minister said. “For us to get growth we need order, we need harmony and we have ways of resolving whatever differences may appear from time to time.”

Saying that tourism requires a peaceful environment, Patterson warned: “Our visitors have choice. They’re not going to travel to Jamaica if they feel that when they land here they are going to be impeded in their journey to Negril or Ocho Rios.

“They want to get to the beach as quickly as possible and to stay as long as possible so that when they leave at the very last minute they can still get to the airport and be able to leave on time.”