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#BTEditorial – Moore or less for the BWU?

by Barbados Today
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Prime Minister Mia Mottley should be pleased with her choice of Toni Moore as the ruling Barbados Labour Party (BLP) candidate for the St George North constituency to replace former school teacher and long-serving Member of Parliament Gline Clarke.

Mottley has received the bulk of the praise for a well-executed and successful orchestrated by-election in which Moore, the General Secretary of the Barbados Workers’ Union (BWU), slid smoothly from workers’ representative on the national level to the go-to MP for a rural constituency confronted with a plethora of issues, including terrible roads, excessively high youth unemployment, water woes and disgruntled homeowners still fuming that they are paying a sewage tax, for which they argue, they are not beneficiaries of the service.

The entire lightning-fast manoeuvring involving Clarke’s imminent posting as Barbados’ top diplomat to the Canadian capital of Ottawa after almost three decades, hardly caused a ripple.

Save for the intervention of the goodly trade unionist and firebrand Senator Caswell Franklyn, Barbadians may not have learned that Clarke held dual citizenship as a Bajan-Canadian. More so, we may not have been enlightened that he could not assume the diplomatic posting unless he relinquished his prized Canadian citizenship.

It was also due to Senator Franklyn’s dogged scrutiny that the ruling party’s campaign actions on the use of branded t-shirts with Moore’s likeness was in violation of local election laws.

The official Opposition party’s man in the race, David Walrond of the People’s Party for Democracy and Development (PdP), may have garnered very few votes at the poll, but the PdP certainly shook up the race.

And now that the 44-year-old BWU general secretary had her way paved to the Lower Chamber of the House of Assembly with 3 154 votes over the nearest of her five other male competitors, Floyd Reifer of the Democratic Labour Party, who received 1 327 votes in a historically low turnout, we ask: What next?

Less than half of eligible voters in the St George riding felt the contest was worth their time and energy.

While our still highly popular Prime Minister blamed the historically low voter turnout on the COVID-19 pandemic, might we humbly suggest, dear Prime Minister, voter apathy was behind the lack of interest by constituents.

In a period of high unemployment, such that the highest organs of Government either refuse or have neglected to share unemployment figures for nearly a year, we are not surprised by the lack of interest. The most that we seem to receive from our technocrats and MPs are references to the 32 000 unemployment claims that were paid by the National Insurance Scheme (NIS).

Again, we make the call for full disclosure of the latest unemployment figures, including the rates over the last three quarters.

For Mrs Moore, we wish her the best in her efforts to serve both masters – the BLP and the BWU –, each with very demanding constituents.

The news in recent days that several tourism workers have dumped the BWU following Moore’s elevation to Member of Parliament cannot be good news for the island’s largest trade union or its reputation.

What it suggests is that one of the biggest, if not the biggest divisions within the BWU, is unhappy with the level of representation it is receiving or is likely to receive now that the BWU boss is a member of the ruling party.

The BWU’s loss is the gain of the Unity Workers’ Union, under the tenacious leadership of Senator Franklyn. It seems like a lifetime ago that the hotel workers division, guided by hard-nosed, no-nonsense BWU Assistant General Secretary Levere Richards, took on the might of local and foreign-owned hotel owners. His was a fight to ensure that these workers, who languished at the bottom of the income scale, were not exploited and that sector-wide wages and conditions of service were constantly improving.

Today, the sector has been ravaged by the pandemic. Unemployment benefits have come to an end, and some lucky few have retained their jobs. But even the luxury class properties that should have at least minimum reserves, have sought to cut employees’ salaries by as much as 50 per cent.

One cannot imagine the now retired Richards allowing such a development under his watch. With the greatest respect for the remaining leaders in the BWU, we are certain a more creative response would have been on table.

We believed you, Mrs Moore, when you promised “Moore” to the constituents of St George North.

What would be ideal now, is a promise of “Moore” to the Barbados Workers’ Union, whose members are hurting deeply and looking for even more from the institution that promised to be there for them during the good times and the challenging ones that now confront them.

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