St. John Vitran workers called off a planned Thursday march on the Legislature to wait and see what comes out of a meeting of government decision makers to discuss their fate.
After discussing the matter with Public Works Commissioner Harold Thompson Jr., Sen. Almando "Rocky" Liburd said the meeting would take place on Tuesday, May 2, at 10 a.m. at his Cruz Bay office.
"I spoke to Commissioner Thompson briefly, and he said he's happy to sit down and talk about the issue," Liburd said. He said he has also asked St. John administrator Julien Harley, Government House chief labor negotiator Karen Andrews and United Steelworkers Union president Luis "Tito" Morales to attend the meeting.
The decision to hold off on a public protest came after a Wednesday meeting of the St. John Transportation Advisory Council.
Liburd said he hopes a commitment by the government to keep St. John's successful public transit service intact will come out of the Tuesday meeting. "The people of St. John need the bus service, they deserve it and they intend to keep it," he said.
The senator-at-large, a native St. Johnian, also said that Thompson is supportive of Vitran St. John and is optimistic that a way will be found for the small island's bus service to continue.
St. John public transit workers say when the island's bus system was set up in 1997 in the Schneider administration, they were told that St. John Vitran was a service to be run by island residents for islands residents. At a meeting of St. Thomas-St. John district Vitran employees with union leaders on St. Thomas last week, the St. John workers were told they would lose their jobs because they are at the bottom of the list in terms of seniority — and that their jobs would be offered to St. Thomas workers with more seniority.
But Morales told the St. Thomas members they would have to move to St. John in order to accept the jobs. Vitran St. John operations manager Donna Roberts said that so far the St. Thomas workers have rejected the offer.
The unionized Vitran workers on St. John, St. Thomas and St. Croix have all offered the government wage and benefit concessions in exchange for keeping their jobs. There has been no response from government officials as to their willingness to reconsider plans announced by the Public Works Department to cut the number of Vitran employees by half and greatly reduce bus service on all three islands, effective May 10.