Vantage Services

Vantage Services Jamaica Ltd. is a subsidiary of a Multi-National Corporation with Head Offices in Stockholm Sweden. The Jamaican Company commenced operation early 2004 with a staff complement of approximately sixty employees. Among the many incentives that attracted Vantage Services to Jamaica were; the availability of cheap labour, the fact that potential employees spoke English, the assurances that the company could operate with limited interference from the government, a stable political climate, opportunity to repatriate profits without hassle and freedom to set terms and conditions of employment as they saw fit.
Things went well for the first six months but shortly thereafter employees began to complain about the way they were being treated, the absence of operational policies and procedures, arbitrary management decisions, variation in agreed rates of pay with little or no explanation and in general an unwillingness of the management to have discussions about the issues employees were facing.
Some of the employees decided that things were likely to get worse and so they privately got in touch with a Union and asked for assistance in having the management of Vantage Services realize that there were issues that needed to be addressed. There was a stand-off between the Management and the employees in relation to the possibility of a Union coming into the organization. Top Managers felt that there was no problem that could not be addressed by dialogue and that Unions would add another level of delay and confrontation when there were important contracts with delivery deadlines to meet and the Union would make life difficult for all concerned.
Vantage Services has never had to deal with Unions and they were unsure exactly how the unionization of employees could make the company more productive. In addition at a time when the main objective was to cut costs or keep costs as low as possible, it was difficult to justify to shareholders that Unions could help in