NUPW calls for cave workers to be paid outstanding pensions

Nearly a year after being made redundant, more than two dozen former employees of Harrison’s Cave are yet to receive their pensions and gratuities, prompting the National Union of Public Workers to call for urgent resolution.

Two months ago, Minister of Energy, Small Business and Entrepreneurship, Kerrie Symmonds told Parliament that the rebranded Caves of Barbados Limited had paid out over $3 million in benefits to the cave’s severed workers.

Symmonds said close to $2.5 million of that total was severance payments.

Acting General Secretary of the National Union of Public Workers (NUPW) Wayne Walrond Friday said the ex-workers are at their wits’ end and out of pocket. He called for the situation to be rectified urgently.

While conceding that those former National Conservation Commission (NCC) workers would have received their severance, he said they were still waiting for their pensions 11 months after being laid off as part of the restructuring exercise at Harrison’s Cave.

Walrond said Harrison’s Cave was run by the NCC before Government awarded Jamaican company Chukka Caribbean Adventures a 25-year lease to manage its operations last year.

The staff at Caves of Barbados was officially severed on October 31, 2020 and Chukka took over operations from December 1, 2020.

Walrond said as NCC employees they were eligible for pension from Government.

He said although it became a company in its transition to the Caves of Barbados Limited, the contracts of the NCC workers who worked at the Cave remained untouched.

“One of the things that they put in the Caves Act was that the workers who came over from the NCC would be engaged on terms and conditions no less favourable and that also included preserving their pension rights, meaning that they would get a Government pension and gratuity,” Walrond said.

“So there were two creatures at the Cave; one that was recruited directly by the Cave which would fall directly under their pension plan and then the persons who transitioned from the NCC.”

Walrond said while it was normal for there to be a grace period before starting to receive pension, 11 months was not acceptable.

“They were severed since September 30, 2020, so technically from October 1, those workers who were severed from the Cave and were formerly employed by the NCC are eligible to receive a Government pension once they are 60 or over. This is 11 months and they have not heard anything,” Walrond said.

“You may not get it immediately because pensions have to be processed…but this is 11 months and they have not gotten any communication. I’m not seeing any sense of urgency and the workers are very concerned because they are out of pocket, they are frustrated, they feel abandoned, they feel disrespected and we think it is untenable, it is reprehensible and not good enough.”

Walrond said he had already reached out to the insurance company responsible for paying the pensions but was still awaiting word on when they would be paid.

(randybennett@barbadostoday.bb)