Chairman of the Antigua Hotels and Tourism Association (AHTA) Alistair Forrest is hopeful of settling the outstanding collective bargaining agreement between hoteliers and their employees after today’s scheduled meeting with Labour Minister Dr Errol Cort.

LIAT unions have now gone past seeking resolution with management and are attempting to have the whole management team replaced.

The Government of Antigua & Barbuda has been advised to watch its back where its interests in regional airline LIAT are concerned.

Unions representing LIAT workers in Antigua & Barbuda will converge in the capital tomorrow for a major meeting that will determine the next course of action in their ongoing dispute with the airline management.

Come Monday, pilots at regional carrier LIAT will know if the company has accepted “proposals aimed at restoring industrial stability” and brokered under the chair of Antigua & Barbuda’s Labour Minister Dr Errol Cort.

LIAT returned to the skies Thursday after some of the pilots who staged a two-day sickout reported for work.

Unions representing all non-management staff at regional airline LIAT weren’t overtly calling for resignations or firings at the top yesterday as they had done in the past, but they were demanding an immediate reinstatement of one of their own – Chairman of Leeward Islands Airline Pilots Association (LIALPA) Michael Blackburn, who was fired on Monday.

American Airlines has reversed its decision to sever 18 of its Antigua employees by today.

Word that between 20 to 30 Antigua-based employees of American Airlines are in the pink slip zone caught the workers and their bargaining agents off guard yesterday.

Having been caught off guard by the sale of Jolly Beach Resort and Spa, shocked shareholders and the union representing workers there are anxiously awaiting more details about the deal.