Neal & Massy will be sitting down with the Barbados Workers’ Union to discuss ways of minimizing staff layoffs as the Trinidad-based conglomerate prepares to embark on the restructuring of Super Centre Limited and Dacosta Mannings Retail Limited.
BWU general secretary Sir Roy Trotman said the discussions would also look at ways of possibly increasing employment at the end of the reorganization.
Two Fridays ago Neal & Massy, the parent company of Barbados’ biggest supermarket, pharmacy and food distribution chain, as well as Dacosta Mannings retail stores, announced the restructuring and said there would be “some initial adjustment in staff levels”.
Sir Roy said last week that while he had received documents from the company outlining its streamlining exercise, there still has to be more dialogue.
“We are supposed to study that document . . . and very shortly we shall be having meetings with the full committees of management and general meetings with the workers and then we will be commencing the exercise of fuller discussions with the Dacosta Mannings and Super Centre merged body,” he said.
“We had a meeting with all of the shop stewards and with some of my colleagues and myself, and the image of the company for the new merged company was spelt out and we made certain suggestions regarding how that merged body might be made to provide more rounded service, and at the same time be possibly able to increase the number of employees.”
Sir Roy said while there were no discussions yet about how many people would be affected in the initial phase of the planned restructuring, the matter would be discussed before any decisions were made.
He said by the time the exercise was completed there could be “a net increase in employment”.
“The possibility exists for some people to volunteer to go and for new people to be brought on. And there will be some skill sets that may have to be adjusted. So there will be a dynamic movement in personnel without there being, according to the picture presented to me, any loss of employment over the long haul,” he said.
In announcing the changes, Neal & Massy said the local companies that were part of century-old Barbados Shipping & Trading were in need of a renewed business model. (MM)
