BASSETERRE, St. Kitts – FORMER employees of the now defunct Clear Harbor, a call center that was located within proximity of the RLB International Airport that closed its doors to business on March 30 without warning, claimed that they have yet to receive their all their monies from the company.
On Friday, June 4, several ex-employees had gathered at the Labour Department to meet with the Labour Commissioner, Spencer Amory, for an update on the situation.
Some of them said they are still owed monies which include redundancy, notice of closure and vacation payments.
They said the process is taking too long and they have bills to pay.
“Basically, they haven’t started anything for us as yet. Nothing has gone to the minister to sign, so we basically wasting our time. Our bills are backing up, we have no money. We haven’t found any new jobs yet and all we can do is go home to wait,” said a former employee.
The former employees met with Amory for about two hours and he updated them on how far the matter has reached.
“We had a cordial meeting,” said the Labour Commissioner. “I can imagine the former employees a bit impatient, but we can understand that it is an entity that is overseas, so we’re trying our best to bring a resolution to the matter and hopefully have all the outstanding monies paid.”
Amory said that the Labour Department has been working along with the former Finance Officer of Clear Harbor, Greg Payne, in going through the figures that were presented, as a number of employees complained about short payment, short payment in notice pay and short payment in vacation pay.
“We had moved to seek to address that problem. The exercise has now been completed, so we are now ready to move forward with the next step of the process, which is to alert Clear Harbor as to the findings and make sure those short payments are paid, and any outstanding amount to the Social Security system would be paid up,” Amory said.
He said they would be writing a letter to the US-based company on their findings and informing them about the monies owed.
The Labour Commissioner said there is also the concern of severance payment, which he declared is the responsibility of his department to ensure that it is dealt with.
“There is no one here from Clear Harbor to sign, so the law empowers the Labour Commissioner to advise the Minister of Labour, who has already been aware of the situation. Those forms will be signed. The Minister and Labour Commissioner will sign and those persons who are eligible to receive severance pay will receive it.
“We can now move forward in the process of getting those claims…the Minister and myself would sign off on it. And now we can do the process of checking with Social Security and do the necessary investigation to pay those workers,” he said.
Amory said that Clear Harbor’s former finance officer also spoke to the employees at Friday’s meeting and he thanked him for coming forward and assisting with the situation as best as he could.
“We have to thank Mr. Payne for coming forward on behalf of Clear Harbor rendering the assistance necessary, going through the payroll, meeting with the workers, as the Labour Department would have hosted meetings. Basically, we want to thank him for assisting in that matter,” Amory said.
Amory also said that he had called the legal counsel for Clear Harbor, Carl Edmeade, to update him on the process.
“We’re aware Payne would be in contact with him. There is a concern that Clear Harbor, with respect to the notice payment, hasn’t been sorted with persons as yet, and Edmeade has promised to bring it to the immediate attention of his clients (Clear Harbor) so we can move forward and bring closure to the employees,” Amory said.
The Labour Commissioner said that Payne had alerted the company on what is outstanding and that they would be served with some information to bring some clarity to their concerns.
“We’re prayerful that at the end of that they will move as quickly as possible. They will move to honour the information they have before them that, in fact, there is some outstanding amounts due for the workers who were impacted by the closure,” he said.
Amory was unable to give a date as to when employees can receive payment, but noted that over EC$100 000 was what the company owed to the ex-employees.
“We are moving forward. It is a matter that had reached the court, as Clear Harbor had received an injunction. But we’re moving forward step by step to bring about resolution,” he said.
One week after the dismissal without warning of 131 workers at Clear Harbor, it was announced that High Court Judge, His Lordship Justice Errol Thomas granted an injunction against the company.
In a press release, it was reported that the Social Security Board received some monies from Clear Harbor Nevis Limited to satisfy its various obligations for Social Security and Employment benefits, but there is still an outstanding balance of EC$2,192.15 for Severance Payments and EC$12,742.44 for Housing Levy.
It was also reported that the Electricity Department of St. Kitts and Inland Revenue Department under the Income Tax Act were also owed monies.
Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Labour, Hon. Sam Condor had described the move by Clear Harbour (Nevis) Ltd. to terminate the jobs of the employees as “callous, unprofessional and disrespectful and closure of its operations in minutes constitutes a clear breach” of the Protection of Employment Act and subsidiary legislation.
He said “every legal option would be explored in an effort to ensure that this matter is justly dealt with”.
