Unions concerned about slow start to promised projects

The head of the umbrella body for trade unions in Barbados is voicing his concern about the role of labour in the social partnership.

This will be among the issues that president of the Congress of Trade Unions and Staff Associations of Barbados (CTUSAB), Edwin O’Neal, said will be ventilated when the 13^th Biennial Delegates’ conference is hosted on September 24.

Speaking to the media at the Barbados Union of Teachers (BUT) headquarters at Welches, St Thomas Friday, O’Neal queried why in the present COVID-19 climate were social partnership meetings so infrequent. In his opinion, the pandemic was so serious that it warranted a greater consolidation of ideas among stakeholders, including the labour movement.

“There was a period of time when meetings were being held frequently. The emergence of COVID really presented a crisis in many respects. It is surprising therefore, that whereas the social partnership would have been meeting on a regular and consistent basis in normal times, I would  think that abnormal times would have required even more frequent dates of the social partnership since we are all in this together.

“This COVID crisis represented  an even more serious challenge to the stability, to the governance, to the very germane nature of what is Barbados and who we are as Barbadians. So that will also occupy some time and some resources of the conference,” O’Neal maintained.

While he welcomed initiatives and policies that sought to enhance and protect the welfare and security of workers, the union leader however, expressed concern about the “slowness” of the start-up times of some of the previously promised projects that were restated in Tuesday’s Throne Speech. He noted that this was especially a concern given the fact that these projects were intended to soak up the labour which would have been displaced at the start of the Barbados Economic Recovery and Transformation (BERT) programme.

“This has not happened, and of course COVID has now compounded that situation, so we can only be alarmed at this slowness. We have our projections, we have our expectations … as to what this delay will mean to the recovery of the Barbados economy and the capacity to get workers back into the job market. So that is some cause for worry and concern,” O’Neal stressed.

Next Thursday’s conference will be held under the theme: Labour 20/20 Vision: Revitalizing, Energising and Consolidating the Barbados Labour Movement.

Four resolutions are down for consideration; as well as the election and installation of officers. O’Neal, general secretary Dennis de Peiza and first vice president Pedro Shepherd are all running unopposed. Key note speaker will be Dr Derek Alleyne, while Minister of Labour and the Social Partnership Colin Jordan is expected to deliver remarks. (KC)