Not enough done for trade union members

General secretary of the Unity Workers Union (UWU) Caswell Franklyn has charged that the trade union movement in Barbados is doing little to represent workers.

The trade unionist levelled the allegations hours after Government passed the Queen Elizabeth Hospital Amendment Bill, 2022, to allow a trade union representative to sit on the QEH’s board.

In an interview with Barbados TODAY, Franklyn, whose union was at loggerheads with Government last year over the treatment of nurses at the state-run health institution, said the new legislation “meant little” as general secretary of the Congress of Trade Unions and Staff Associations of Barbados (CTUSAB) Dennis DePeiza was already a member of the QEH’s board.

Franklyn said DePeiza had done little as a board member to represent workers at the QEH.

He claimed that other trade union representatives were sitting on boards across the public service, but were not agitating for workers.

“If they were acting in the best interest of the workers they would stay up there and do things to represent the workers’ interest but they are not doing so. It is not about representing workers,” Franklyn maintained.

“I have not seen any instance where trade unionists sitting on boards made any difference. They have trade unionists sitting on the National Insurance board from its inception. Right now they want to disadvantage the workers at National Insurance by talking about they are going to make National Insurance a board and the trade unionists aren’t standing up against it. And the thing is National Insurance is already a board…

“If they were standing up for the workers you wouldn’t mind but they are not,” he added.

But DePeiza, when contacted by Barbados TODAY defended his tenure on the QEH board.

He explained that CTUSAB was an umbrella body and it was not its role to defend individual workers.

“Trade unions represent individuals and CTUSAB is not a trade union in that sense. CTUSAB is an umbrella organisation and an umbrella organisation represents the collective of the unions and it deals with policy issues.

“If you’re talking about the individual representation of workers and that is what Mr Franklyn is speaking to, then the various unions as I am aware within the body of the QEH, which would be the Barbados Nurses’ Association, the NUPW [National Union of Public Workers], the Barbados Workers’ Union, BAMP [Barbados Association of Medical Practitioners]… those would be the requisite bodies who would represent its individual matters of union members,” DePeiza pointed out.

“If Mr Franklyn gave the public the impression that CTUSAB goes there to represent individual workers then it is misleading and it needs to be corrected. The hospital is a statutory board and it deals with governance issues and the labour movement as part of the governance of this country we speak to the matters at that macro level and to help to give guidance, help to give its expertise and help to be part of a national decision making and that is where we sit and the role that CTUSAB plays at that level…and of course we try to make sure that there is no exploitation, that irregularities are not practiced and that workers are treated fairly and not in any way disadvantaged.” (RB)