Payment block

Operations at the Caribbean Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) reportedly came to a halt on Monday afternoon as workers demanded answers about an unpaid sum of money due to them at the end of October.

Sources at the country’s lone television station told Barbados TODAY the issue surrounded the latest installment of back pay owed to dozens of workers, which started this April after extended negotiations between the Barbados Workers’ Union (BWU) and the CBC.

The situation has reportedly been even more dire for still unemployed ex-workers whose only source of income is the installments.

Efforts to reach CBC’s acting General Manger Sherwood McCaskie were unsuccessful up to the time of publication and CBC’s BWU President Kent Jerson refused to make a public statement on the matter.

However, sources close to the situation indicated CBC’s management has been given until Wednesday at noon to disperse the funds.

Around 2 p.m. on Monday, upset union members met to discuss the issues, after which they were addressed by the Acting General Manager. They then met again and set the Wednesday deadline.

The monies are part of the separation arrangement reached by the BWU and the CBC when, as part of the Barbados Economic Recovery and Transformation (BERT)  Programme, dozens of employees were retrenched. The back pay for current and retrenched staff is to be paid in 42 monthly installments beginning last April. According to a source, the funds are being made available by the Central Bank on a monthly basis and the CBC sends the payments to the various financial institutions on the recipients’ behalf.

On this occasion, the board member responsible for signing off on the payments reportedly refused to do so, though the money had been made available from the Central Bank since last Thursday.

One irate ex-worker told Barbados TODAY: “This is highly unethical and particularly disturbing because the CBC is the only state entity that sent home workers under the BERT programme that did not pay their in lieu of notice monies in cash and now that the Government has stepped in to fill the void and sends the money from the Central Bank to CBC every month, there should be no reason under God’s sun, why at the end of every month workers don’t receive their money on time.

“Any other such arrangement whereby the workers receive their monies late can be considered uncaring, unethical, highly unsatisfactory and especially disturbing to people whose only funds are coming from these monies, because the unemployment payments have stopped since June and most of their severance payments were used to pay bills and furthermore they are still awaiting pensions due to them since June.”

In light of the recent saga in which CBC for months refused to pay pension owed to over two dozen employees, the ex-worker expressed disappointment that a similar issue would re-surface.

“It appears that at every juncture in CBC’s history over the last three decades, whenever they are called upon to pay the workers’ due, they have come up with some bogus excuse to delay workers their just due and it must stop,” demanded the worker.

Workers are reportedly calling on Chairman David Leacock for this saga to be the last and are asking for their Christmas payments to be delivered no later than the middle of the month. kareemsmith@barbadostoday.bb