NUPW says tourism revival key to maintaining public sector jobs

The trade union representing the bulk of Government-paid workers has warned of the possibility of job losses in the public sector.

General Secretary of the National Union of Public Workers (NUPW) Delcia Burke today cautioned that if tourism activity is not soon restored to at least half its pre-COVID levels, the Mia Mottley administration will not be able to retain current workforce numbers.

Contending that tourism is what will save Barbados, the trade unionist said she hoped visitors would start returning in large numbers soon, now that this country has reopened to commercial travel.

“Because I know that if tourism does not come back to at least half of what it was, three quarters of what it was, the Government will not be able to continue to hold strain, really, to employ the numbers that they are employing,” Burke told Barbados TODAY this afternoon.

“So, I am hoping that the other sectors…tourism, agriculture to a lesser extent and manufacturing, start to look up again so that Government will be able to continue to employ the numbers that they are employing,” she declared as she gave an overview of the current industrial relations climate.

The NUPW General Secretary noted that Government had committed to keeping workers employed during this challenging period, and although she remained hopeful that “we don’t have layoffs”, she added: “But I expect some negative fallout.”

Meantime, Burke has empathized with laid off private sector employees who are represented by the Barbados Workers’ Union (BWU) and the Unity Trade Union (UTU).

Responding to comments last week by BWU General Secretary Senator Toni Moore that some employers were using the COVID-19 situation as an excuse to send home workers, “unilaterally” cut wages, change terms of employment contracts and “force” workers to sign new agreements, Burke said public sector workers were untouched.

“So, we can’t say they used COVID to do what the BWU is saying to send people off on short time or cut their wages or to lay off people or that sort of thing… because we have not been affected that kind of way,” she said.

“Obviously, we would have to empathize with the colleagues at BWU. We know that it would affect their membership. We have heard how it has affected their membership, but it has not affected us the same way.”

During a news conference last Thursday, Moore suggested that the conversation about layoffs needed to move beyond the tourism industry, and said the time had also come for deeper national discussion around labour-related challenges and for the “revisiting and upgrading of the labour administration of the Labour Department”.

In the four months following the shutdown of the economy in March this year due to the spread of COVID-19, the National Insurance Scheme (NIS) paid $70.6 million to approximately 29 000 unemployment benefit claimants.

Acting Director of the NIS, Jennifer Hunte, said the number of termination certificates received during those few months represented approximately three years of unemployment benefit claims. (emmanueljoseph@barbadostoday.bb)