By LEDEDRA MARCHE

Senior FN Reporter

lededra@nasguard.com

Fresh out of an emergency meeting with the membership, Commonwealth Ele-ctrical Workers' Union (CEWU) President Leslie Lightbourne is set to meet with Grand Bahama Power Company Chief Executive Officer Alan Kelley.

It is one of the three mandates he must fulfil within a short window before signing off on a new five-year contract, Lightbourne told The Freeport News Sunday.

The special meeting was called last Tuesday following the termination of a veteran line staff employee the week before and it was expected to decide the union's way forward regarding several outstanding matters with management at the company.

Lightbourne is also expected to arrange a meeting with both Labour Minister Dion Foulkes and CEO Kelly and thirdly, get an injunction against any further drug tests at the company.

Should there be no resolve after exhausting all avenues, the CEWU chief said, the membership will meet again and decide what type of industrial action it will take.

Last Tuesday, the CEWU called on the minister to intervene following the firing of one of their own who management said had tested positive for having drugs in his system.

But Lightbourne insists the grounds under which the employee was terminated is outside of the industrial contract and therefore he should be paid what he is worth.

"There are only two ways you wouldn't be paid termination pay — (1) if you are on probation and (2) under disciplinary action which is stated in Article 23 and outlined in one to 11. Drug use is none of those infractions," he said.

"We don't have a problem with them terminating him. We just want them to pay him his money. That's what the contract says."

While the union has no objections to drug testing, it is, however, taking exception to management's new app-roach by extracting hair samples.

"They have taken the testing further and have started taking hair samples now. Our attorney has advised me that that is a violation of our constitutional rights," Light-bourne said.

As a result, the union's attorneys are working on an injunction to have testing stopped.

Lightbourne said he is hopeful that the meeting with Kelley will provide positive results.

"We're going to see if we can get some justice for the terminated worker," he said, which is the primary issue and deal with the other outstanding matters at the same time.

Those outstanding issues include payment of some $76,000 to about 15 former employees under the old contract which expires on April 1.

"We're being optimistic that out of this meeting we can get some sort of closure," Lightbourne said.

The next meeting with the membership is scheduled for Tuesday, February 17.

"Hopefully everything can be resolved by then," said Lightbourne.