THE Clerical and Commercial Workers Union (CCWU) has written the Board of Directors of the National Communications Network (NCN), requesting that the one-month suspension of Sports Editor Mrs. Jocelle Archibald-Hawke be reduced to a warning letter.CCWU head, Sherwood Clarke, told the Guyana Chronicle on Friday that the union wants the NCN Board to ensure Mrs. Archibald-Hawke returns to work as soon as possible. The letter was sent on Friday and the CCWU leader said he is optimistic that Mrs. Archibald-Hawke would soon return to work.
“I am optimistic that the board will give a favourable response,” he said, noting that he believes in the positive side of situations.
Clarke said the union and the NCN management are in bilateral talks on the issue, and the union has requested the television network to have a change of heart in the matter, but NCN CEO Lennox Cornette has informed that the matter is in the hands of the network’s board.
Having served the NCN for almost nine years, passing several performance–based assessments in which she has consistently scored 100%; and having been promoted to the position of Sports Editor almost two years ago, Mrs. Archibald–Hawke has been off air for now almost two weeks because she had expressed the view on her personal Facebook profile that she was “surrounded by idiots,” after her colleague, Norman Gobin, had questioned President David Granger on his television show, ‘The Public Interest’, about an augmented reality game, “Pokemon Go.”
The NCN Human Resource Department had subsequently asked her to apologise, and she did; but she has nevertheless been suspended, allegedly because the apology was not to the liking of her colleague; moreover, reports of past incidents of misconduct, which had already been dealt with, were revisited.
The young mother is contemplating her next move regarding financing for this month. She is reportedly contemplating approaching a commercial bank to which she makes monthly payments for her leased car.
During the Thursday recording of his television show ‘The Public Interest’, President Granger said it was inhumane of the NCN management to take such actions against the Sports Editor. “I think there was as absence of compassion on the part of the administration [of NCN], and we expect that [compassion] in the future. I think it is inhumane to deprive an employee of her salary without due process,” he said.
With no social media policy to guide the conduct of the NCN staff, the President also contended that no law was broken, nor was any crime committed by the Sports Editor.
The Guyana Press Association (GPA) has insisted that Mrs. Archibald-Hawke’s suspension should be rescinded because NCN does not have a social media policy from which it can institute disciplinary action.
NCN CEO Lennox Cornette has been criticized over another issue at the state broadcaster, this time relative to News Anchor Natasha Smith. Prime Minister Moses Nagamootoo, who has oversight of the information sector, said in a statement issued on Wednesday evening that he had advised the CEO to tender an unqualified apology to Ms. Smith “for using her pregnancy as reason to remove her temporarily as News Anchor.”
The Prime Minister said that from information received and explanations given by the CEO, he was “in no doubt that the removal of Ms. Smith was due to her state of pregnancy, and that the act is an attack on her as a woman and as a professional journalist.”
Smith is shortly expected to proceed on maternity leave.
