An unprecedented bid has surfaced to make Akanni McDowall the first Secretary General of the National Union of Public Workers (NUPW), Barbados TODAY can reveal.
Some 150 union members have signed a petition to trigger a special meeting to put the case for McDowall, the incumbent president, to be installed as Secretary General for the next four years with immediate effect.
But the petition, which has McDowall’s tacit support, has been slammed by the acting general secretary of the nation’s largest public workers union and threatens to drive deeper fractures in a union leadership that has already been splintered by years of rancour and controversy.
If successful, the 40-year-old health planning officer in the Ministry of Health and Wellness would be the first to hold the new post, with a month to go before elections.
Since Roslyn Smith vacated the post of General Secretary in 2019, no replacement has been appointed.
But acting General Secretary Wayne Walrond told Barbados TODAY he was shocked by the move, which he described as “disturbing” and “unethical”.
The member behind the petition, Natalie Murray, confirmed to Barbados TODAY that she handed the petition to Walrond on Thursday.
According to the NUPW’s Constitution, Walrond now has 14 days to convene the special meeting.
McDowall confirmed Thursday night he is aware of the petition.
When asked if he had aspirations to lead the country’s largest public sector union as secretary general, McDowall told Barbados TODAY he was willing to serve the NUPW in whatever role the membership required of him.
“I am here to serve the membership and in whatever capacity. Whatever the membership decides at the meeting I will be willing to serve,” he said.
“The lady called me and told me she was going to submit a resolution to the union for me to become the General Secretary and I told her that I am guided by the membership. My focus is to be able to serve so in whatever capacity they decide they want me to serve I will oblige.”
Murray, a former employee of the NUPW secretariat and a union member for over 20 years, said the response had been “overwhelming” from the membership, with the number of signatures exceeding by three-fold the 50-member threshold for a petition.
She maintained the NUPW needed restructuring and McDowall was the best man for the job, adding that her support for him was not an indictment on Walrond’s performance as acting General Secretary.
Murray said: “I was weighing everything that was happening recently and looking at the global trends and I think the NUPW needs a restructuring and I think that Akanni would be the best person based on his representation, based on his achievements as the president of the NUPW to be the person to do so….so based on that I decided to draft a resolution to make him General Secretary but with a name change to Secretary General.”
She praised the NUPW president for his representation of former workers of the Barbados Investment and Development Corporation (BIDC) who were unfairly dismissed, saying his voice was always being heard “speaking out for the membership”.
But Walrond, who took over the position of Acting General Secretary in January following the retirement of Delcia Burke, warned that McDowall is setting a dangerous precedent.
He said while it was obvious McDowall is eager to lead the union this was not the way to go about it.
Walrond told Barbados TODAY: “I received something officially…It is very disturbing, it is shocking, it is unprecedented. It is shocking that such a matter can just be merely changed by the whims and fancies for someone with 50 signatures.
“A matter like that has serious implications for the good administration of the union and therefore the manner in which this is proceeding is very disturbing and unprecedented.
“I’ve never seen such behaviour from any president in the history of the union,”
Walrond, a former Deputy General Secretary who has spent 38 years at the NUPW, added: “There is something in the Constitution about calling a Special Meeting with 50 signatures or more to discuss the agenda, but if that is used we have to be careful.
“But what I will do is I will act in accordance with the rules and the Standing Orders. I don’t know if the president understands what he is doing and what are the implications of it.”
(randybennett@barbadostoday.bb)
