Cromwell Smith knocks PR efforts of CCT
He opined that there seemed to be a misconception in a prevailing thought that the more persons sounded educated [in delivering messages], then it was the more they would be understood and respected.
Speaking on the Umoja radio programme last evening, June 6, 2013 Mr Smith had offered that part of the reason for the company's recent layoffs centred on competition among the three major communications companies in the Virgin Islands (VI) and CCT’s recent ‘catastrophic event’ that occurred just before the dawn of the new year.
CCT experienced a hardware problem that forced a complete shutdown of its voice and text platforms and prevented customers from communicating by mobile phones within the Virgin Islands for a significant period. The company subsequently entered into a roaming agreement with its competitors, LIME and Digicel BVI, that allowed its customers mobile access.
According to a press release that was sent at the time, “The cause of the outage was identified on Sunday, December 30, as a communication problem between the CCT switch and the cell sites. The GSM service interruption is currently affecting CCT mobile service, and as a result call service in the BVI is unavailable. CCT customers roaming outside of our network are not affected by the outage.”
Smith also stated, “They had that event and of course they had some unfair competition that the TRC, in my view, failed to really mitigate in an expeditious manner.”
He felt that even though the issue of unfair competition was sorted to some degree, elements of unfair competition still remain between the telecommunications competitors in the VI.
Smith, while describing himself as pro-worker, said he looked at the issue from a nationalist perspective where companies were locally owned.
“You know you can’t live without your phone service,” he said, “that’s like our electricity, that’s like our water supply… I lump all of those things in vital national interest and anytime those things are under attack, I see a national security threat.”
Smith hinted that CCT officials shelved the deceptive idea of laying off employees in the hope that they would be re-hired “once things picked up”. “To the owners, that wasn’t the best thing for the employees, to lay them off [having] them thinking there is a possibility of coming back when they know there was no possibility of coming back, at least not in the near future,” he said.
He said workers were given two months’ notice of their termination and were asked to leave the job immediately for security reasons even as they are being paid their regular salary and given benefits during the period of notice. The commentator reasoned that while it is always sad for workers to lose their jobs and be terminated, he didn’t know of any other way that the terminations could have been done any better.
According to Mr Smith, management both ‘cried’ and ‘prayed’ with staff members during a meeting, even as they announced a decision to reduce the workforce of the company.
Smith said his understanding of the situation, coming from both employers and employees, is that there was a meeting where staff members prayed together and an owner was driven to tears because of the ‘heart wrenching’ nature of the decision ahead.
“It was a decision based on the fact that you had so many people working in the organisation that really didn’t have that much to do,” Mr Smith said. He reasoned that the layoffs were suggestive of cases where technology has been replacing workers.
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24 Responses to “Cromwell Smith knocks PR efforts of CCT”
Similarly, why do you think we here dying for water? Trying to kill Investment Club with Biwater and instead, killing the people of this country.
As for your water problem, it is not Biwater. Tell the NDP government, who are shareholders in OC to allow Biwater to complete their installation and we will all get inexpensive water. But they not going to do that as long as Ocean Conversion is oerating the Baughers Bay Plant at 1.2 million dollars a year.
So how do you know when Biwater is finished you will have inexpensive water? Just because Mr White said so you believe it, but our local boys are the crooks right? You will soon learn about Biwater, stay tuned man. Where is the FREE waste treatment plant? You believed that too? Come to find out on the fineprint said it would be purchased using monies from Government that they paid for water? So is it really Free? Is it really inexpensive? Do you think Water and Sewage new payment rules are just a coincidence? This is all getting ready for Biwater coming on stream and don't believe it will be cheap. The BVI never needed a new water plant. It needs the infrastructure fixed. What use is there producing water and you can't pump it to the homes? It was said that Biwater would be doing pipe laying, road works and treatment plant. Up to now they can't figure out how to get water into their plants so you stop there with your bull$h1t. Whether Investmetn club invested in CCT or not that would not have helped. They had too much staff. Does LIME even hvae 16ppl? Does Digicel even have 10? But CCT lays off 16 and is still in operation so what that tell you? They were overstaffed. The point is CCT hired more locals than the others and nwo they had to let them go. BAM
@Truth, You are so full of bull it is not funny. You said the fine prin said the sewage treatment plant would be bought from water sale? Why do you people lie to feel good and to impress others? There is no fine print in the Water Purchase Agreement. Why dont you read it for your self instead of listening to that lying Minister? Don't you understand that it is a game the Minister is playing, the longer they keep Biwater from producing water, the more money in their (NDP Ocean Conversion) pockets. 1.2 million dollars a year.
How do I know that the water will be inexpensive? There is a contract, you fool. Just tell your NDP friends to stop playing games with the taxpayers of the BVI, This whole thing will end up osting the Government 100s of millions of dollars. STOP PLAYING GAMES, LET BIWATER EXECUTE THEIR CONTRACT.
These are the kind of heartless people you are up against. Some of those same people they laid off are NDP, I hope the now see what a liar the Premier is, when he said the ECONOMY IS ROBUST.
Lemon is just as bad
Hope he does a better job with the hospital Pr…
Fedup you are right. People think because you are rich or well off it means you must take care of them. Nothing goes like that. The club can buy what the hell they want with their money. It is theirs. Were you there when they started? Do you know how many of them had to mortgage house/land etc and put up their last to get it started? All you see now is the glitter and gold so you talk $h1t. They had too many staff there hanging around doing shit so I don't know what you talking about. To me it took them too long to make that move as it was killign the company. They have some issues internally yes but being rich doesn't obligate them to keep people employed if the business is going under. Just because people have a big house and drive a nice car means they are millionnaires. When people work for their things see them and leave them. This stupid mentality will kill this place but wait, some day many of you will have businesses and realize what time it is. For now keep sucking on the breasts.
We have to first accept the fact that we chose a capitalistic type of society. In capitalism, if you can't handle the heat of business competition then stay out. CCT has been r@p*ng the Territory for so long without competition that they seem to think that the country them something. When I spend my money I try to get the best value for it; remember this is capitalism. When CCT was r@p*ng the country (the caller and the recipient each paying 75 cents a minute = $1.50 a minute) they were not thinking about making investments to improve the service. We hat to "trek wat we get". Now that competition come stronger they bawling foul. Let them dip back in their pockets and reinvest to match the competition. And it is ethically and morally wrong for the government to use the TRC to keep the competition off them and keep them in the game. This country is too small to have government propping up private enterprises with public funds. These people need to get off their behind, do some proper management and, instead do stuffing their pockets with the profits, reinvest and build. The big profit will come later.