Labour Day Message: NUPW urges workers to collectively stand for their rights

Below is the full text of the union’s message: The National Council, the Executive Committee and the Secretariat of the National Union of Public Workers extend warmest May Day Greetings to its members, Public Officers and all Workers in Barbados.   Today, is the day of observance, when workers all around the world acknowledge and celebrate their achievements as a collective force.  May Day is also the day to rally members, and for workers to reflect and reinforce the adage that there is strength in numbers for Union renewal.   This year the NUPW took as its Theme : Inspiring the collective conscience for Union renewal.  The conscience is that inner sense of what is right or wrong in one’s conduct or motives, impelling one to toward right action.  Our collective conscience tells us it is right, and it is your right. to join a Union.   Today the fundamental rights of freedom of association and for workers to bargain collectively are being challenged.  The challenges to these fundamental rights do not come primarily from unreasonable employers.  The main threat comes from the lack of collective awareness, knowledge of and the appreciation of these rights by workers themselves.   As workers, we need to be vigilant and unrelenting in the protection of these rights for workers today and for generations of workers to come.  Workers must do all that is possible, within the confines of the law and common-sense to reinforce the principle of: the collective interest supersedes the individual interest.  Collectivism through worker education, worker participation and engagement in Unions activities must be strengthened/fortified.   The NUPW encourages us to spend a few moments today in thinking about ways in which we can help ourselves as workers.  We can start by paying attention, by reading a few chapters of the Employments Rights Act, the code of Conduct and Ethics in the Public Service Act or brushing-up on a few sections of the collective agreement at our places of work. Workers’ best interest is served when they are smarter, more qualified, more skilled; and thereby becoming more competent, more marketable and more productive.  The effect of this is that the intrinsic value of the total workforce is increased. Each worker must see themselves as an investor in the business of Barbados – to be more discerning in the way he/she spends their money; to think of the national development when purchasing that product or service; to seek opportunities to invest and not just to spend, and to consolidate their wealth. We must be reminded as the Union song teaches us, “When the Union’s inspiration through the workers’ blood shall run, there can be no power greater anywhere beneath the sun” and “without our brains and muscle not a single wheel can turn, we can break their haughty power, gain our freedom when we learn that the Union makes us strong!”   SOLIDARITY FOREVER!!  ]]>