No union official behind sickout call, NUPW finds

There is no evidence to show that any of the officers of the National Union of Public Workers (NUPW) were behind a social media call on frontline public health employees to call in sick, NUPW Acting General Secretary Wayne Walrond has declared.

This was the outcome of an investigation by the union into a WhatsApp post which named its industrial relations officer as the person urging the workers to sick-out, he said.

The social media post reportedly related to the payment of hazard pay to frontline workers, a process which Government said was already in train as money should have been disbursed by now to the staff at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital.   

Walrond told Barbados TODAY: “The investigation has not pointed to any evidence. So far, with the lack of evidence, it would appear to be a malicious act. The evidence has not been forthcoming. There was an original one that we saw that did not have anything to do with industrial anything; then there was one where this was an add-on with the officer’s name.

“So it is the second one that became contentious. The first one did not have anything to do with… but the ultimate part of the article is where this part seemed to have been inserted.”

The acting general secretary declared that in any case, this is not the way the union operates with respect to industrial action.

“Whether it is “soft” action or “hard” action, you don’t engage it like that anyhow,” Walrond said. “That is not strategic, that is not our approach. And even when workers reach the point of planning some kind of action, it is not done in that way.”

The WhatsApp message read: “Dear frontliner. It is obvious that the Government cares little for what we do. I invite you to rally together and call in sick this Wednesday, 13th Jan, 2021. Enough is enough! Since we are overlooked let the powers that be,  run the place without us.  Unity is in numbers! Wednesday…..call in sick #sickout  #sickofthis #morethantourism #payus.”

Walrond told Barbados TODAY: “How that was done was unfortunate. We were constrained to respond because of some calls from the said frontline workers. Yes, we have our issues…we are responsible to the people in our care. Even when the frontline workers called me, I wanted to know what is this…how can this be…this is not the approach.

“I would tell you this, obviously in any situation, where we find workers off the job because of some environmental issue, we embrace them and support them. But this is one where you are publicizing. We don’t go and publicize in the social media a sick out, we don’t do that.”

He pointed out that if the union heard on social media that workers had actually taken action, they would assume that the members had a grievance and the NUPW would support them.

The union leader added: “If we had heard it by the way…if it had happened, we would come to the conclusion that the workers are aggrieved and therefore we would take every action to support them in terms of trying to resolve the grievance…that would be after the fact; if it was organized and it happened, obviously you would not come out and condemn your members for taking any form of protest action.” (EJ)