Unions representing workers employed with the regional airline, LIAT, are to meet with the shareholder governments in Barbados on January 30, chairman of the Regional Grouping of Trade Unions, Chester Humphrey has said.

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.

LIAT workers in Grenada have accepted EC $500,000 (US $185,000) to temporarily end almost two weeks of industrial action, but the dispute has still been turned over to an arbitration tribunal.

LIAT has been forced to cancel several flights for yet another day, as talks regarding an industrial dispute with its Grenada employees ended in a stalemate yesterday.

LIAT’s Corporate Communications Manager Desmond Brown has drawn the ire of the Antigua & Barbuda Workers Union (ABWU) for his comments that trade unions had introduced new conditions in negotiations on closing ticketing offices across the region.