During the early hours of Christmas Day, 25 December 2020, the life of Patrick Bayo Mkhize came full circle; marking both the birth and death date of this iconic trade unionist, and struggle and contemporary grassroots activist.
A 60-year-old black consciousness movement (BCM) stalwart, Mkhize succumbed to the Covid-19 virus, exacerbated by pneumonia, while hospitalised at Durban’s St Augustine’s Hospital. Mkhize was the serving general secretary of the Transport Retail and General Workers’ Union, an affiliate of the South African Federation of Trade Unions.
According to Mkhize’s daughter, Tracey Fared: “The Mkhize family would like to implore community members to remember our social obligation to our communities to protect and shield our elders and vulnerable members from the Covid-19 pandemic which is devastating our close-knit communities. We all have a social responsibility to practise social distancing, follow prescribed protocols and avoid risky behaviour that m
Malta Air never wanted to strike a deal with cabin crew members which it has now said it will make redundant, the General Workers’ Union has claimed.
The airline, which is jointly owned by Ryanair and the Maltese government, said on Tuesday that it would be making 40 crew members redundant after talks with the GWU over cabin crew conditions failed.
It said it had been seeking modest pay cuts to staff and had offered a minimum pay guarantee, with a review after three years.
The redundancies had been on the cards since May, when the airline had said it would have to lay off around 60 staff members due to the COVID-19 pandemic halting travel.
Some of the Perenco Trinidad and Tobago Limited workers wait on a shuttle boat to be transferred to Point Galeota on Sunday, after testing positive for COVID-19.
The Joint Trade Union Movement (JTUM) has expressed anger at the attitude of Perenco Trinidad and Tobago’s management in dealing with the COVID-19 outbreak on two of its platforms and at its threat to discipline workers should they disclose any information on the incident to any third party, including the media.
In a statement issued last evening, JTUM said the threat letter and other correspondences issued to workers by the oil and gas company was “a clear indication of this company’s intent to hide, undermine and coverup any wrong with regards to the handling of COVID-19 cases found on the various platforms.”
Updated 7pm, adds PN statement
A total of 40 cabin crew will be made redundant at Malta Air from January 1, with the airline blaming the General Workers Union for the dismissals.
A spokesman for Malta Air, a subsidiary of the Ryanair Group, said the union had failed to deliver a cabin crew emergency agreement agreed by the GWU and Malta Air last Thursday.
The redundancies amount to a fifth of its staff contingent of 179 cabin crew and pilots.
This emergency agreement included modest pay cuts to be restored over four years, along with a minimum pay guarantee and a year three review.
Rhondor Dowlat-Rostant Over 35 offshore workers employed with the Perenco Trinidad and Tobago oil and gas company were transported to the Ministry of Health’s quarantine facility at the University of the West Indies’ Debe campus last evening, after they tested positive for COVID-19 while on duty on the Teak Alpha platform last week. The workers were transported to the facility just around 6.25 pm yesterday and were processed before going into quarantine.
Earlier, at around 10 am, they had been taken to Point Galeota by shuttle boat but there were no health officials to receive them. As such, they had to wait until health officials arrived, along with the maxi taxis which were to transport them to Debe. Guardian Media understands the workers stayed on shuttle boat for close to seven hours before a team of Ministry of Health officials went to process them at Point Galeota. However, the workers were forced to stay on the deck of the shuttle boat because the captain did not wan