By Emmanuel Joseph
Some 30 BICO ice cream mobile sales persons have pledged to remain on strike pending the outcome of a proposed meeting with Executive Chairman Edwin Thirlwell next Tuesday.
The independent contractors came to the decision after meeting among themselves on Thursday at the Harbour Industrial Estate headquarters of the 122-year-old ice cream manufacturer.
When contacted this evening, Thirlwell said he is open to meeting with a representative group of the mobile salespeople.
“But not with all of them, three or four of their choice,” the BICO boss told Barbados TODAY.
He also said that up to Thursday evening, he had not been notified of the meeting, but would await a further update.
The disgruntled mobilers met with Thirlwell on Tuesday of this week to seek a review of what they described as an unaffordable increase in plug-in electricity charges for their vans which use freezers to store the ice cream provided by the company.
However, that meeting ended in a stalemate and since then, the mobile sales people have parked their vans in the yard of the company and refused to work.
Spokesman for the group David McClean told Barbados TODAY on Thursday evening: “We don’t plan to work this weekend. We have requested a meeting with Mr Thirlwell on Tuesday. So we don’t plan to work until after Tuesday, depending on what comes out of that meeting,” McClean announced.
“After the meeting, we will see where we are at and then we will decide the way forward,” he added.
McClean said the only BICO ice cream vans which are likely to be on the road this weekend, would be the two that are owned by the company.
McClean, who has 15 years’ experience as a mobile ice cream salesman with the company explained that the issue “is something that just should not happen”.
McClean added: “I was the second person ever to be given a contract to do mobile work for BICO some 15/16 years ago. When we were first given the contract, BICO said that they would provide overnight parking and would wash the vans to make them presentable on the road.
“Somewhere along the line in 2014, they blotted out the 2011 contract with that clause and they had in, ‘they would provide overnight [plug-in] charging with additional charges’. These charges are subject to changes in electricity price from the Light and Power from time to time,” pointed out McClean, who said he wouldn’t be renewing his contract when it expires in December.
He said that the mobilers cannot afford to pay the new plug-in and other fees which in some cases have doubled.
McClean suggested that it is management’s belief that there is a shortfall in income from the mobile business.
[Thirlwell proposes] that every man should be making $3,000 a week. “If there is a shortfall of this $3,000, the company is going to be charging you $20 extra, plus you would have to be paying for hold-overs. That is where you plug in at night and during the day, the ice cream would self-freeze. That is one system,” he explained.
McClean said there is another system which uses an inverter that converts the battery power into a 12-voltage direct current that allows the salesperson to use a household freezer.
“So he is saying that those who use the inverter, they would have to pay $29 a week and for the hold-over freezers, it’s $68 a week. If this is the case, we are going to deal with all of the hold-over freezers.
“We had a meeting with the man on Tuesday and the charge moved from $65 to $68. We are saying, we can’t pay that. We are saying, $68 by a month, that is $272. So we look at that for just an ice cream van. That is more than the electricity you pay at home,” McClean explained.
“He is saying to us that he did an independent evaluation from TMR Sales and Service Limited, a local electrical supply store. We don’t need someone from TMR. What we need is someone from Barbados Light & Power because they are the only people on this island contracted to sell electricity or energy to anyone,” the spokesman stated.
Thirwell had told Barbados TODAY on Wednesday that the mobilers were being unreasonable.
“The electricity charges for a cold storage at BICO have gone up by 119 per cent,” he charged. “Due to an oversight when we reviewed the charges in relation to the Barbados Port Inc contract for the handling of cargo, the accounts department did not update the charges in relation to the electricity for BICO mobilers,” he explained.
emmanueljoseph@barbadostoday.bb
