UNIONISED workers of the Portmore Petcom Service Station in St Catherine, who walked off their jobs on Thursday, returned to work yesterday.

The 30 disgruntled workers of the state-owned petroleum station stopped working Thursday after they were informed that the operations of the station would be outsourced and the jobs of the workers made redundant.

The placard-bearing workers, who protested outside the property for several hours on Thursday, claimed that Petcom had acted in violation of the memorandum of understanding signed between the government and trade unions in 2006.

Under that arrangement signatories agreed that during the period “there would be no separation of employment in the public sector except for justifiable dismissals, and through restructuring and mergers of entities as agreed”.

It was also agreed that all proposals for mergers and restructuring would be brought to the attention of the MOU Monitoring Committee.

Yesterday, James Francis, head of the United Union of Jamaica, which represents the gas station workers, said that following a meeting with the Ministry of Labour and Social Security and Petcom, it was agreed that the workers would resume their duties while discussions continue.

“The company has now agreed to abide by that which they did not do before,” Francis said. “We closed off on that issue and we plan to work to avoid any redundancy; the workers are very happy, back on the job and ready to pull their weight,” Francis said.

“What we do know is that the redundancy will not take place…and there will be no victimisation on either side,” he added.

Petcom, said Francis, promised to observe the provision of the labour laws and the guidelines of the memorandum of understanding.

On Thursday, in defence of its action, Petcom said the decision to outsource the operation had been taken long before the MOU was signed with the unions.