CARIBBEAN Products Limited workers on Monday vowed to remain off the job until there is a resolution to their grouses concerning the company’s introduction of a flexi-workweek arrangement.

National Workers Union (NWU) Island Supervisor Khurt Fletcher told the Jamaica Observer that the workers are upset that the flexi-work arrangement was implemented without an agreement between the management and employees.

The disgruntled placard-bearing workers turned up at the company on Monday morning but did not take up the new flexi-work shifts, in protest against how the arrangement was implemented.

“They have indeed implemented shifts, and we are not pleased with the way it has been done nor do we have an agreement of any sort to validate that arrangement,” Fletcher said.

He said that the union has been in discussion with the company outside of its labour agreement, which expires December 31, regarding the implementation of the flexi-workweek arrangement, but those talks have borne no fruit.

He explained that the current arrangement is for employees to work 40 hours, Monday to Friday, and there are arrangements made for Saturday and Sunday if required. He said the flexi-work arrangement will now have the 40-hour workweek instituted anywhere between Monday and Sunday, “which means that you would not automatically have the weekend off”.

“The law says if the company is going to change your terms of conditions of work, especially in a unionised environment, then there must be an agreement between the management and the workers and, by extension, the union. Our discussions over the last few months, and up to Monday last when we formally met with the company, never yielded any resolution. We rejected the position put forward by the company to implement the flexi-workweek,” he said.

Fletcher said the company met with staff on Tuesday about the matter, and after workers rejected the plan the company said it would return to the union to continue the discussion. However, he said that on Thursday last week the company sent out a memo indicating that the new flexi-work shifts would be posted on July 3.

He said the union wrote to the company reminding that there is no agreement, and expressed willingness for further discussions, but “they have closed us off, basically”. He said the union also suggested that the company wait until the expiration of the labour agreement to have the flexi-workweek discussions.

“They wrote back to us to say that they are going to implement it on Monday, irrespective of there not being an agreement, and any worker who fails to take up that assignment… they’re going to fire them by making them redundant,” he said.

Fletcher stressed that while the workers agreed to entertain the flexi-week discussion because they understand the value of the flexi-work arrangement to the company, “We are saying you can’t look at it one way because in the immediacy, that flexi-work arrangement is going to [disadvantage] people personally and also financially…and we need to find a way how to mitigate against some of these losses that are going to be suffered by the workers,” he said.

The protest triggered a meeting between the NWU and the company’s management at the Ministry of Labour and Social Security. They are scheduled to return to the ministry at 8:30 this morning.

The Observer has learnt that the company is planning to speak publicly on the matter today.

Caribbean Products Limited, a subsidiary of Seprod Group of Companies, is the principal manufacturer of cooking oil, margarine and shortening in Jamaica.