Phyllis Thomas, News Editor
ANOTHER set of workers in the information technology (IT) sector have been sent home.
Some 37 workers from Teleservices Jamaica in Portmore, St. Catherine, have been out of a job since Monday and they are angry at the way they say they were asked by the management of the company to leave. They are also curious, they say, about why the management of the company heaped a number of them in a bus and took them to Parliament on Tuesday, when Industry Commerce and Technology Minister, Phillip Paulwell, was explaining to the nation, the Government's dealings in the failed NetServ Global Communications Limited, another IT company.
The workers said that they were promised at a general meeting that at the end of their training, their jobs would have been secured. However, on Monday they were summoned to meeting in the lunch room and an executive of the organisation told them "I am afraid I have bad news for you...I have to terminate your service without prejudice." The reason given was that they had not met the requirements of the company as some of them had "diction problems".
The names of those being sent off were then called and they were not even allowed to re-enter the work area. They were told they had to go straight through the door, they say.
"We were treated very unjustly," one of the workers told The Sunday Gleaner. "We were not even given a minute's notice."
Another argued, "They said we had problems with 'th' but how is it that they are only just telling us this. I think that this is a side track. It's really because of NetServ and they are panicking."
They believe too that the company may be experiencing financial problems as up to Friday those sent off had not been paid.
The fired workers say they feel betrayed as only a few days before they were assured that their jobs were secured. This, after hearing that they would be fired if they were not generating enough sales for the company.
"But people were told not to listen to rumours," one said.
However, Authur W. Fried-man, chief operating officer of Teleservices, while admitting that the workers were taken to Parliament, is at variance with the fired workers' version of what happened. He said that Teleservices, in conjunction with HEART has a 12-13-week training programme. For the first six weeks they are in classroom training at HEART and after that they are brought to the Teleservices facility where they are put on the telephone and given on-the-job training.
"When an employee shows that he is not absorbing the training that employee is put back in additional training class," Mr. Friedman said.
However, if at the end it is determined that that persons "will not make the grade in telemarketing" then they had to part company.
He said the workers were given feedback about their progress so if they expressed surprise at being sent home then he would "be disappointed".
Explaining the reason for sending them straight through the door he said persons had access to private information and client list and the company could not take the chance of allowing them back in the work station.
Mr. Friedman admitted that workers were taken to Parlia-ment, however, he said, they had requested to go there.
He explained, "they recognise the importance of the IT sector to Jamaica and Mr. Paulwell's leading role in trying to bring jobs to Jamaica. They wanted to support him."
But some of the workers claim that they were taken off the phone and taken to Parliament.
Teleservices facilities in Portmore was started on November 12, with a projection of creating 2,000 jobs by June 2002, Mr. Friedman said. However, so far they employ 250 and are expected to add another 600 between January and February.
The NetServ scandal rocked the IT sector two weeks ago, after the company was placed into receivership, Mr. Paulwell ordered an Auditor-General investigation of the INTECH Fund from which some companies benefit, and the Prime Minister instructed Mr. Paulwell to explain Government's involvement.
