Eighteen former employees of a Montego Bay-based Spanish company and their union, the National Workers Union (NWU), are accusing the company, Solo Jamaica, of union-busting and wrongful termination.

The workers, who journeyed to the NWU last week to air their grouses, have also accused the tour company of attempting to bribe them not to join the union and forcing them into signing a contract, even though they had worked there for years, without signing anything. That contract would also classify them as temporary workers.

“They were threatened that if they don’t sign, they don’t have a job,” NWU President Vincent Morrison said. Solo Jamaica reportedly made good on that promise last week when it informed the workers that their positions had been made redundant.

However, according to the workers, new people have been hired to fill those same positions.

Attempts to get a comment from the company’s president, Tristan Garcia Alvarado, who is also Jamaica’s honorary consul to Barcelona, proved unsuccessful. We were told repeatedly that no one could take our call.

Morrison said in March this year the union submitted a claim to represent the workers’ interests to the company. However, the company, he said, claimed it never received the correspondence.

The workers allege that after the NWU sent the letter to the company, the attempts at bribery started.

Now, Morrison said, the company’s redundancy claim is illegal and the NWU is prepared to take the matter to the Ministry of Labour, seeking reinstatement for the workers.

“We are asking the Ministry of Labour that any employer who comes to this country and breaches the laws of this country, their work permit should be revoked immediately,” Morrison said.

He said the union had also asked the ministry to refer the union-busting complaint to the Director of Public Prosecutions.

Janice Campbell was a supervisor who had worked with the company for four years.

“It’s because of the union why all of the changes have been happening,” she said. For example, she said, instead of salaries being deposited into workers’ accounts last month, they were given cheques and “extra cash to say it was a raise”.

“We were displaced from our job because they don’t want the union,” Campbell, said, adding that the company’s management has said the union is bad for the company and for the employees as well.