By NEIL HARTNELL Tribune Business Editor THE Bahamas Telecommunications Company (BTC) last night reminded the trade unions representing its staff that it had to safeguard its "long-term health", since an unfavourable industrial agreement could compromise its competitiveness as the market liberalises. Challenging several statements made by leaders of the Bahamas Communications and Public Officers Union (BCPOU), the newly-privatised telecommunications carrier said that while it had offered to increase the base salaries for BTC line staff by 4 per cent over a three-and-a-half year period, this did not include the increments paid every year. Adding that these were tantamount to salary increases, BTC said that adding these to the 4 per cent base rise would give non-management staff (BCPOU members) a wage rise of between 9.6-11.2 per cent over the three-and-a-half year period October 1, 2010, to March 31, 2014. "When the management proposed lump sum is taken into account, the pay increases for all staff will be more than 10 per cent over the three-and-a-half year period to 31 March, 2014," BTC added. "This proposed increase happens at a time when across the private and public sectors of the Bahamas, many companies have frozen increments and salary increases due to uncertainty in the economy." Marlon Johnson, BTC's spokesman, told Tribune Business last night: "One of the things that we are trying our best to do is take a medium and long-term planning horizon, and that decisions we make today are for when competition intensifies. We have to be mindful that decisions taken today serve the long-term health of the company. "One of the things we're mindful of is that the cost structure is high in relation to other carriers, and BTC has the element of operating across an archipelago, which is bound to make the cost structure higher than in other places. "But increased competition is coming in, which means erosion of market share. We need to be in a position to manage costs as effectively as possible to keep prices competitive." Competition is already here for BTC in both its fixed-line and Internet markets, in the shape of Cable Bahamas, and that will only intensify in 2015 when its cellular monopoly is opened up to, potentially, the likes of Digicel. BTC, meanwhile, also rejected the union's claim that a 2010 survey by the PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) accounting firm had shown 90 per cent of its line staff were underpaid. It countered that the survey showed that the base pay for BTC employees ranked them among the top 25 per cent in the Bahamas, and if all compensation - such as benefits - was included, their ranking "would exceed the 25 per cent quartile in the market". "If we factor in all the benefits, our ranking would be higher in that upper 25 per cent percentile," Mr Johnson added. He suggested that BTC was also planning for any potential strike action by the BCPOU, in a bid to minimise any service disruption for consumers, but added: "We remain confident and optimistic that we will come to a resolution that makes sense for everybody." BTC also denied the union's claim that it had hired 200 consultants, saying the correct figure was less than 50, and most were on short-term contracts. "We have a massive change agenda including projects in networks, in IT and in customer service systems that require additional short-term specialist resources," the company added. "We engage vendors, consultants and technical experts from many places, including the Bahamas to help us deliver these change projects."