St Kitts gov't to continue support for served workers of Lutron Liamigua

The transition of former workers from Lutron Liamigua Ltd in St. Kitts into new opportunities will continue into June 2019, as the government through the Department of Labour lends ongoing assistance to affected persons.

While some of the staff chose to retire or gained new employment elsewhere when the company closed on March 01, 2019, fifty-three of the workers who were severed were employed by Jaro Electronics. Senior Minister and Minister of Labour, Honourable Vance Amory, said the process of mitigating the fallout from the closure was handled very well by all involved.

Discussions were held with the principals of the company as well as with employees. Staff from various government departments such as the Department of Social Services was called on to help the employees to better understand all of the related issues.

“In addition to our discussion with the two reps from social services, the government also volunteered to provide training or retraining for persons wanting to go in other areas,” Senior Minister Amory said. “We had requests for persons wanting to go into childcare, education, and hospitality, and our responsibility, which we assumed, was to facilitate them, to get them to understand what it will take to embark upon a new line of employment, which will require significantly different skills.”

The training is expected to begin in June based on the feedback from stakeholder groups including the former workers. The course will be largely coordinated by the National Skills Training Programme.

The former Lutron Liamuiga workers were also offered a severance package from the principals. Senior Minister Amory said that the government was pleased with what was offered describing it as “a good handshake.”

“I think it showed from their perspective that they were quite satisfied with the way our people here in St. Kitts and Nevis have responded to them and contributed to their company’s development and production of the units which they were charged to produce,” he stated.

The Minister of Labour said that the government was grateful for the inputs from all stakeholders who worked to ensure the process of the closure and transition of the employees was made as simple as possible. He reiterated that government was committed to continuing to assist the transition of affected workers where possible.