WORKERS GIVEN OPTION TO BUY FACTORIES.

The 1,100 employees at the Oneita clothing factories in the Montego Bay Free Zone have been given the option to buy the business, reports CANA (March 27, 1999):

. The director of the facilities here, according to a Jamaican Observer story, wants the workers to use about J$27 million

(US$756,000) of their combined severance pay to buy the factories. "They could use the money to buy equipment, set up the co-operative and start manufacturing a private label," said Winston Dear; Oneita's parent company was experiencing financial problems and filed for protection under U.S. bankruptcy laws last week. Ian Boyne, public relations manager for JAMPRO, the Government's investment and promotions agency, said that Oneita's Jamaican facilities were among the most "efficient and profitable" of the U.S. company's chain of facilities; Other job losses are also expected in Jamaica, reports CANA (March 26, 1999). The state-run training agency HEART/NTA was laying off 83 workers on April 1, says Executive Director Robert Gregory. The Jamaica Observer reported that 125 telephone operator positions had been made redundant by Cable & Wireless as part of a reorganization program.