Industrial action short-lived at the BCC

The industrial dispute at the Barbados Community College (BCC) sparked by the termination of a maid has been resolved.

Ancillary staffers, who were off the job Wednesday in solidarity with their colleague, returned to duty following an emergency meeting between Chairperson of the BCC Velma Newton and Acting General Secretary of the National Union of Public Workers (NUPW) Wayne Walrond.

Claiming the maid had been unjustly dismissed after four years of loyal stewardship and “satisfactory” performance, the NUPW had been demanding her reinstatement and immediate appointment to the post.

Walrond had accused the college of firing the worker based on an interview rather than measuring her on the performance she rendered during the past four years.

He had also rejected an alternative temporary position which the BCC management had offered to the maid, claiming the arrangement was not workable and was only a verbal promise full of too much uncertainty.

In fact, the union leader alleged that the institution had taken the job from the woman and given it to somebody else based on an interview.

But after emerging from the meeting Wednesday with the BCC’s chairperson and her management team, Walrond told reporters the discussions were “strong” and a settlement had been reached.

“We insisted we would want a remedy of reinstatement because this lady should have been appointed…She is a very good worker and therefore we are happy to announce that she has been offered an appointment to the post of maid We are very happy with this resolution. It augurs well going forward with the board to continue those relations that we enjoyed. And so, workers have been advised that they have to go back to work,” the union General Secretary declared.

“The Employment Rights Act doesn’t lend to employers waiting after several years to determine employees should go because of a process of going before a panel…that is not the way to do it. What employers would need to do is to use the probationary period and determine if the person is fit for the organisation to make a decision…but don’t let that person go over for years and years and years and then say you are invoking a process of interview to eliminate them,” Walrond reiterated.

He reasoned that even if there is provision in the Act that speaks to capability of performance, this would still involve a long process of testing, paper trail, assessment and acquisition of a medical certificate of fitness.

“And then the safest way out of capability of performance is to look at an assessment…a medical assessment to determine fitness for work. That is the safest way to approach any capability,” the NUPW leader suggested.

He also disclosed that the maid would go on holiday from today Wednesday.

BCC chairperson Newton also confirmed the reinstatement of the maid and her permanence in the position.

“The matter has been resolved. We made a proposal to him [Walrond]. They accepted it, the young lady accepted it and as far as we are concerned, it is over. She wanted the post of a maid and that is what it is. It is a permanent post with the usual conditions,“ Newton told Barbados TODAY.

However, in representing the BCC’s perspective, she recalled that the college needed to fill four posts, but that the maid in question had not done a good enough job during the interview.

“And at the time of the interview, it was not yet time for her annual performance appraisal for her division. Now, the union objected to the fact that she did not place after the interview, and they wrote us and we made them an offer to give her an alternative post in the security department during which we promised we would train her …It would have been temporary initially and we would have obtained the security certificate of character for her,” Newton explained.

“The union responded to us about 4 p.m yesterday [Tuesday]. It didn’t reach me until late, so it went to the principal, to say they rejected our offer and they wanted a permanent posting for this lady. We were considering it and actually found a way of dealing with the matter, but before we could get back to the union…that’s yesterday afternoon, they went ahead and this morning [Wednesday] some of the maids were at the gate standing.

“We had a meeting with the union and we made them the offer that we would have made to them yesterday if they would have waited and the matter is settled. They accepted it. They told the people to go back to work,” the BCC chairperson explained.

In an interview with Barbados TODAY on Tuesday, Walrond threatened to take the college before the Employment Rights Tribunal for what he claimed was an unfair dismissal.
(emmanueljoseph@barbadostoday.bb)