#BTEditorial – Should workers have to fight for what is theirs?

Two stories published just a day apart both tell a sad story. In both instances, workers are pleading for money that is rightfully theirs. And in the 21st century Barbados this should not be.

The first story,  Accra Beach Hotel workers seem to have exhausted all possible avenues in order to get their just due.

Former employee Rhea Straker pleaded for what is legally theirs.

She said: “The long and short of it is that nobody ever gets back to us . . . It’s almost like they are doing it on purpose to try to prolong what is happening and frustrate you. We really would like a meeting with them because we want to know what is happening so that we would know what steps we would have to take and how we can go about getting the money that is legally owed to us. That is all we want.” 

And then followed the story of the Barbados Agriculture Development and Marketing Company (BADMC) ex-employees who are still awaiting their money even after a ruling was made by the justice system through the High Court.

A group of 16 retired employees is collectively owed over $2 million in pension payments. Last year after a long legal battle, the Court ruled that the former workers were entitled to money paid by BADMC to Sagicor Life Inc. as part of a pension plan.

Though not a new battle, it is one that really needs to be settled post-haste.

One retired manager, Oliver Agard, painted a clear picture of the 25-year-old plight.

He said: “We’ve had a couple of people who have passed away without benefiting from the fund, and it does not speak well for the professionalism of the entities involved. We are asking that there should be closure in this matter. It is not a joke thing. All of us here are pensioners and we need the money so we can get on with our daily lives. So, this is a very urgent matter.

“We are not seeking to degrade or defame any person; it’s just that this matter has been around too long. I’ve left the entity since 1996 and it’s 2021 and we are still battling with a matter that should have been brought to a close ever since, and this is unfair. But this is the level of treatment that is meted out to those who have given their entire life to an organisation.”

Like Agard, we too do not view this as a laughing matter. This is serious business.

In Barbados, the agreement between employee and employer is clear. All the benefits, if any, are outlined to the worker in the Terms of Employment contract.  So, things such as health and life insurance, pension plans and employee share option plans are in black and white.

When workers sign on to join a company, they do so under the assumption that said contract will be honoured when the time comes. Each day an employee shows up for work, toils and helps the company to record annual success.

In an instance where the employee is not performing, he or she is told and the Human Resources Department intervenes and action is taken.

Likewise, employees who are performing exceptionally well are rewarded. But this is all at the company’s discretion.

But when it comes to money earned and money deducted and paid forward on the employees’ behalf, those funds are rightfully theirs.

Such is the case with both the Accra and BADMC workers. They are not picketing or complaining about bonuses or staff awards; they are demanding what they have worked for over the years.

They are demanding what they are entitled to and should in their evening years be allowed to enjoy the fruits of their labour and sacrifice. To be denied their due whether in the private or public sector is a national disgrace and an occurrence more suited to a backward banana republic.

Marion Harte, who retired as Food Development Officer at BADMC in 2012, still had the pension certificate she received in December of 1988 that declared her pensionable since 2014.

“I am in my 73rd year, and I am not bed up, so I would like to get my money to enjoy before I pass to the other side,” she said. “Sitting here, I have noticed that three or four of us since we were pursuing this case have passed, and a lot of us are on one leg.”

At a meeting in June, Opposition Leader Reverend Joseph Atherley while speaking to a group of aggrieved hotel workers urged them to keep fighting for their money.

Atherley said: “The workers of this country have to get up again and tell a government that thinks it is popular, and employers who think they have money and capital and [that] provide a few jobs, that workers are not to be trampled, and their rights dismissed. We need to stand up and tell them . . . not ‘bout here.”

But, one month earlier in May, when commenting on the plight of the former Accra workers, Minister of Labour Colin Jordan assured that they would be paid. He declared that employers must do right by their workers.

His words: “They have to do good by the workers who have supported them for so many years.”

Those who have ears to hear let them hear.

We now hope and pray that the Accra workers and so many other tourism workers do not find themselves in the same plight as the BADMC workers.

After all, having to wait 25 years for justice that still has not been fully served is absolutely inhumane.