Saying they are trying to protect confidential information about its employees, Virgin Islands Telephone Corp. officials notified their workers in an internal memo Monday that the company plans to fight an effort to release information about its operations to a local senator.
The memo, signed by Vitelco President Samuel Ebbesen and circulated the day before Tuesday’s general election, said that Sen. Adlah "Foncie" Donastorg’s effort to obtain documents on Vitelco’s compliance with the Industrial Development Commission tax-benefit program would break the promise of confidentiality the company has with the IDC concerning employees.
The company told its employees that the information "demanded" by Donastorg includes age, sex, address, citizenship, wages, percentage of wages as benefits, Social Security number, job title and total hours worked per quarter.
"Vitelco opposes the release of the information and has instructed its legal counsel to intervene in the lawsuit to protect your personal and confidential information from distribution to Senator Donastorg and to the general public," Ebbesen wrote.
Donastorg questioned the release of the memo a day before the election. He said he filed his lawsuit against the IDC in September in Territorial Court seeking information about the phone company’s compliance with the tax program. Vitelco’s effort to cast a negative light on him a day before the election was not a coincidence, Donastorg said.
"An employer trying to influence employees’ vote is serious," he said. "It’s a cheap play to misinform Vitelco employees. This is amateurish."
For more than a year, Donastorg has asked the IDC for information regarding Vitelco’s use of employees from its sister companies, all owned by Innovative Communication Corp. Vitelco is an IDC tax beneficiary and receives almost 100 percent tax breaks.
Donastorg has asserted that by placing subsidiary employees on Vitelco’s payroll, ICC is forcing telephone rate payers to subsidize its other enterprises. Both ICC and IDC Executive Director Frandelle Gerard say the transfer of employees is legal and part of a consolidation process.
Gerard has also denied Donastorg’s request for information on Vitelco, claiming that much of the information sought is confidential and not for public review.
That position is one Holland Redfield, ICC’s vice president of corporate affairs, adamantly supports.
"We’re not comfortable with any kind of this nonsense," Redfield said, "just like any other private company would be."
Vitelco is closely scrutinized by the IDC and the V.I. Department of Labor regarding employment levels mandated in its IDC contract, Redfield said. The information being sought by Donastorg is already held by the IDC – a regulatory agency – under strict confidentiality.
"This company is investigated ad nauseam. We do everything but jump through hoops to make sure we’re in compliance," Redfield said. "The question is, who is our master — an individual senator or the agencies regulating us?"
Redfield said the issue is "far bigger than Donastorg" and said the senator should amend his lawsuit to explain what he plans to do with the information.
"All I can say is the type of information he is trying to obtain is confidential information about employees," Redfield said. "There is nothing we are trying to hide."
Donastorg, though, said he has no interest in the personal information of Vitelco employees, "and they know this." He said his effort is to determine if ICC is padding Vitelco’s payroll with subsidiary workers in order to benefit from the tax breaks. That, he said, would affect the phone company’s expenses, its guaranteed rate of return and whether a rate study is warranted.
"A rate investigation would actually help the employees," said Donastorg. "It would tell them exactly what the financial situation of the company is."
As for the memo warning Vitelco workers that Donastorg’s efforts would release company records "to the general public," Redfield said there was nothing unusual in the timing.
"It’s not strange to us. We communicate with our employees from time to time through memos," he said. "Whatever conclusion he wants to draw is his own."
Donastorg said the memo is just another "lame" attempt by Vitelco and ICC to attack his efforts to scrutinize their operations.
"I feel confident the people of the Virgin Islands know this is an attempt to discredit me any way they can," he said.
