By BIANCA SYMONETTE, Guardian Staff Reporter, bianca@nasguard.com

There could be a mass sick-out at the Bahamas Telecom-munications Company (BTC) throughout the entire Bahamas next week, according to a source within the Bahamas Communications and Public Officers Union (BCPOU).

The union representative, who spoke on condition of anonymity, disclosed that the BCPOU president Robert Farquharson, along with top union executives, traveled to Grand Bahama on Friday to meet with employees of BTC on that island, in hopes of establishing an agreement to carry out the mass sick-out.

Without disclosing the proposed day for the sick-out, the union representative told The Guardian that the union is up in arms over the way in which the privatization of BTC is being handled.

The government has announced that it is moving ahead with the privatization of the company.

Earlier this month, Farquharson had called on the president of the National Congress of Trade Unions (NCTU), John Pinder, and all of the affiliates of the NCTU representing over 5,000 workers to pledge their full support for the BCPOU, in ensuring that pressure was brought against the government to make sure that union representatives were at the bargaining table for the privatization discussions.

Farquharson had expressed at the time that the BCPOU was disappointed the government was excluding the union from the privatization talks.

"The BCPOU is extremely disappointed that the government of The Bahamas has changed its policy in not having the BCPOU as part of its privatization committee," Farquharson said during that time.

The BCPOU president had indicated that two letters to the Minister of State for Finance Zhivargo Laing were delivered on March 10 and on March 25 requesting information, however the union claimed that they had not received a response from the minister.

Farquharson said that to date, the BCPOU has not received a written response from the minister.

The government has appointed a privatization committee, whose members are now in the process of meeting with the Blue Waters group to discuss the privatization proposal on the table.

The privatization committee is made up of Minister Laing, T. Baswell Donaldson, chairman of Commonwealth Bank; Felix Stubbs of IBM, Tellis Symonette, vice-president of Wireless and Internet at BTC; Felicity Johnson, vice-president of legal affairs at BTC and Julian Francis, executive chairman of the BTC board.