Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed by this author are their own and do not represent the official position of the Barbados Today.
by Roderick P. Harris
If I were among those who had marched beside Barbados Workers’ Union general secretary Toni Moore against the last Government, I would feel like neither goat nor sheep today, I would feel like a jackass [I hope I can use the name of this legitimate animal in your paper, if I can’t, remove the Jack].
Or, perhaps I would feel like I need to stop my union dues coming out of my salary and join Caswell Franklyn’s organization, the only legitimate labour union in Barbados.
Now, I have no issue with Mrs Moore looking after her financial future at the expense of workers. Too often some workers are such sheep and goats that it is very easy to milk them – with or without udders.
One just have to read the Facebook congratulations and salutations from some of them to appreciate what a real bleat sounds like…or at least, reads like.
Now of course, there have been other unionists who were politicians but they never hid in plain sight.
Sir Hugh Springer was general secretary of the BWU from 1940 to 1947 around the same time that he was a member of the BLP. I actually encountered him when I was
a young man in the mid-1970s.
Sir Frank Walcott wore his political allegiances on his head as did Sir Roy Trotman when they were involved in “\frontline politics.
I spoke to Sir Frank on a few occasions but never had the pleasure of conversing with Sir Roy. And Bobby Morris was as openly a Dem as Miss Moore was a closet Bee. But myself, like the workers in the union, knew who those mentioned gentlemen were.
Now along comes Miss Moore, hiding behind Miss Mottley’s sizeable scarf to such an extent that the Governor General made her an Independent Senator.
What a laugh!
She has sat on certain committees as an independent person when all along she was washed in the blood of the reds.
I can now imagine pictures of her sitting with Miss Mottley during the last government’s tenure and the now PM telling her in very deep tone: “Now, this is what
you will do.”
Membership of the Barbados Workers’ Union has dwindled under Miss Moore’s leadership and I expect it to do so further. But despite the subterfuge, come by-election
I expect to hear resounding bleats following this goodly lady because: “This is who we are!”
