Clarke’s protest ended by police before it begins

Police officers broke up a one-man protest outside Lionel C Hill Supermarket on Friday as activist Winston Clarke attempted to urge shoppers to boycott the store for two days over its staff vaccine mandate.

Clarke said he had only just set up his speaker outside the Roebuck Street store when he was surrounded by officers and asked to cease his demonstration.

He told Barbados TODAY: “I started to speak on the microphone, and I explained that some employees were disgruntled. I did my speech talking about medical apartheid, segregation and discrimination again. A squad of police came for me, surrounded me and told me to shut off the speaker and then told me to move from Roebuck Street.”

Clarke said that after complying with the officers he was escorted to Central Police Station but was not detained.

He said: “They made me drive in front of them to the Central Police Station and made sure I stood there until a certain time. They had me standing up in the car park, I wasn’t under arrest but I was just there.”

The activist told Barbados TODAY that this was the second time he protested outside an establishment and was again shut down by law enforcement. He expressed his confusion about why he was asked to leave in the first place.

“I didn’t have a crowd with me it was myself I asked people not to gather around me,” he said. “They came for me, nobody was breaking protocols. On the other hand, people are allowed to get away with discrimination in Barbados people are allowed to do what they feel like without feeling the law in Barbados.”

Clarke said he remains steadfast about encouraging others to boycott the company.

He said: “The police have told me if I go there they will arrest me. I don’t think they can stop me from walking on the road, I won’t be walking with any speakers or anything but what I can do is walk the road and share flyers speaking about what I do.”

He then turned his ire on the Mia Mottley administration, accusing it of tacitly upholding private sector vaccine mandates even as the Prime Minister this week doubled down in her opposition to their imposition.

Clarke told Barbados TODAY: “I have to believe that the Government is complicit, they are only talking but they are not doing. This is what I would like them to do, to come out and not only speak out but to take action against these businesses which are mandating these policies.”

On September 30, Chief Labour Officer Claudette Hope-Greenidge wrote the Hill Milling and Lionel C. Hill Supermarket group in opposition to a memorandum that advised all staff to be vaccinated in order to remain employed.

The letter read in part: “The Labour Department of the Ministry of Labour and Social Partnership Relations advises that your correspondence be withdrawn immediately.

“It is expected that you will comply with the statute and also honour the stance of the Social Partnership,” the Chief Labour Officer wrote.

The Labour Department chief also warned Hill group CEO Paul Ashby that he could face legal action from employees under the Employment Rights Act as a result of the contents of his memo which suggests discrimination in employment.

But Ashby declared: “The labour officer made a request. I don’t have to answer the request. She can say what she wants to say There is no way that you employ somebody and you can’t fire them? You joke, man.”

Clarke said the Mottley administration must now back up its words. “Everyone believes that the Government is only blowing hard but by their actions they have told the businesses they can do this,” he said. “Come out and prove it, take action put a couple of them in court and take a heavy hand with them.

In a rebuke of the trade union movement, he declared: “The trade unions are doing nothing either. What is the sense of people paying fees to a union and you can’t be represented on issues like these? They are just talking and nobody is acting.”

He then called on the Social Partnership to take a firm stance on the public health issue.

He said: “I want them to take action and not rhetoric. We see nothing wrong with those who want to take the vaccine, take it but don’t force it on people. What is the sense of asking all of your employees to be vaccinated but the patrons you are not asking them to be vaccinated.  Their money is good whether vaccinated or unvaccinated but we don’t want this kind of discrimination.” (KB)