As regional leaders prepare to meet next Tuesday to discuss the way forward for the beleaguered LIAT airline, one of the most vocal workers’ representative bodies is suggesting that severance should be top of the agenda.Chairman of the Leeward Islands Airline Pilots’ Association (LIALPA) Patterson Thompson said today he hopes the collective approach to the LIAT problems for which his entity has long been seeking resolution, would now first address the financial hardships of staff who have been on the breadline for the past two and a half years, having been severed without pay.Speaking on his weekend radio show, Antigua and Barbuda Prime Minister Gaston Browne said a meeting of Caribbean Heads of Government was scheduled for next Tuesday to discuss the way forward for the St Johns-based airline and to determine how it would be structured.But Thompson is adamant that priority has to be given to tackling the former employees’ plight.
