CTUSAB backs hazard pay for all in health care, calls for talks

The Congress of Trade Unions and Staff Association (CTUSAB) has thrown its support behind hazard pay for health care workers, suggesting that while frontline workers are likely to be the first to receive the payment in the current environment, discussions must now be held to extend the payment to others.

Hazard pay concerns came to the fore in recent weeks as nurses at several health care facilities staged work stoppages to demand the allowance, which has been made to employees at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital.

Earlier this week, the National Union of Public Workers (NUPW) submitted a formal proposal to the Mia Mottley administration to consider pharmacists, orderlies and environmental health staff and other workers for the pay.

In a statement, CTUSAB said Friday it “accepts in principle, that there are grounds for the payment of a COVID-19 allowance to those eligible workers in the healthcare system,” stressing that the calls can be considered as “ reasonable” given the increased risk of exposure to the coronavirus.

But it pointed out “that essential frontline workers are the employees who are most likely to receive hazard pay in the time of a pandemic. In the absence of any current legislation on a Hazard Pay Policy in Barbados, labour contends that a resolution on the payment of hazard pay is now a matter to be pursued through the collective bargaining process”.

At the height of the hazard pay debate, Prime Minister Mia Mottley urged unions to put their proposals on the table, but she warned that the demands must be in line with what the country can afford.

CTUSAB, which said it consulted with the NUPW, the Barbados Nurses Association, Nurses Assistants, Aides Association of Barbados and the Barbados Association of Medical Practitioners, argued that key workers face unavoidable risks and burdens that are well above what most are paid for in their base pay.

It pointed to the new “internationally expanded definition of hazard pay as further justification for the matter to be fairly considered”.

CTUSAB said: “This definition has been significantly expanded to encompass work that is not typically thought of as dangerous, but that may cause a worker to be exposed to potential hazards not tied to the work itself. This extends to embrace hazardous duty, which is duty performed under circumstances in which an accident could result in serious injury or death.”

The umbrella trade union group declared that it was ready to work with the Government to develop a hazard pay policy in light of the COVID-pandemic and to better respond to similar events in the future.

CTUSAB added: “It is proposed that discussions on such a policy should address which employees qualify for hazard pay, jobs which are considered hazardous, how many employees can receive hazard pay, the rate of pay whether on a percentage basis or flat rate and whether hazard pay applies to workplace conditions during COVID-19.

“The Congress posits that a legislative mandate would serve the useful purpose of ensuring that essential frontline workers employed in performing hazardous work, receive mandated hazard pay.”
(BT/PR)