Trouble down the pipeline?

Monday 22 December 2014

With days to go until Christmas, the dispute between JT and workers on the Gigabit Jersey project has intensified with employees saying they have not been paid and claiming they are being exploited, and the company saying that some staff are deliberately failing jobs and making false claims on their timesheets.

Staff who have been installing fibre-optic links to peoples’ homes protested outside JT’s office on Saturday, claiming that their pay was being withheld unfairly.

But the company say that there is a small minority of workers creating an issue – they say just three have yet to be paid, and say the wages are fair, with the average earning £36,000 per year and the best-paid on £48,000.

JT chief executive Graeme Millar said that a small proportion of the workers had made unfair and untrue allegations about pay and conditions.

He said: “I’d like to thank the JT shop staff who worked through Saturday in difficult conditions, and to apologise to any customers who were affected when trying to get their shopping completed.

“The first we learnt about the protest was on the news on Saturday morning, and the timing, being just a few days before Christmas, was not under our control. I would also like to thank the majority of workers on this very important gigabit project who are just getting on with the job in hand.”

Nick Corbel, speaking on behalf of the workers as an official for Unite the Union, said that workers’ patience was wearing thin.

He said: “The protest was organised in response to the fact that once again works have not been paid wither their full wage, or in some cases, any wages at all for the work that they have undertaken. There is no justification for what they are doing. There is a couple of people who have not been paid at all – they have been working 8 am to 5 pm, five-days-a-week, for the last month and have not been paid whatsoever.”