Union’s warning

BWU cautions employers that workers no longer willing to put up with unfair practices By Shamar Blunt The Barbados Workers’ Union (BWU) is putting businesses on notice that unless they do better by their employees they could face an “extreme” display of industrial action in the not-too-distant future. General Secretary Toni Moore issued the warning on Tuesday as she asserted that workers have had enough and have had to be held back from going over the edge. The warning was placed on record recently in letters to the Barbados Employers’ Confederation (BEC) and the Barbados Private Sector Association (BPSA), she said. At a press conference at the union’s Solidarity House headquarters where she addressed several labour concerns, Moore said the BWU’s correspondence to the BEC and BPSA was aimed at preventing workers from reaching a breaking point. “We wrote them last week following the action by the [Barbados Public Workers Cooperative Credit Union (BPWCCUL) workers], and we wrote them signalling very clearly that we’ve been warning for years that workers will reach a point which is breaking point. “We reminded them that we’ve been trying to contain the approach against the most extreme industrial force on the part of workers. We have certainly called them to a meeting where we can sit down and discuss a way forward that does not see every week some sort of action or threat of action brewing,” she told reporters. Moore, who also suggested that many bosses do not fear being reported to the Labour Department because of its failure to investigate worker complaints, added: “We have also indicated to them that if the approach we are seeing where companies can clearly do better by their workers and they refuse to do better by their workers, the executive council of the Barbados Workers’ Union is willing to mobilise its strength behind the workers in order to get solutions that are not being met with using the more dignified approaches.” She cautioned that on the current track, given the recent instances of industrial action at KFC, Duty Free Caribbean, BPWCCUL, United Commercial Autoworks Limited (UCAL) and other establishments where workers walked off the job because of long outstanding and unaddressed concerns, Barbados may be in for major industrial action. “What we are witnessing in all of the cases that I have mentioned is a fallout where there have been years of talking around issues and no resolution. What has been the result? Immediately upon workers taking action it seems like the wheels start turning towards resolution. In too many cases, we are seeing within 24 hours, 48 hours, things that we have been talking about forever being resolved; being resolved sometimes more favourably than workers even considered,” Moore said. “It may be taken by many that this is good for the workers’ union because it means that members are getting results, people are becoming militant. But is it really? Is this the society that we want to be raising our children in, a society that signals to them that you only get results when you fight?” In that regard, the BWU boss made reference to the industrial action at three KFC locations earlier this month when workers protested poor working conditions at the popular fast food restaurant and the subsequent return to work after management promised to immediately address 19 of 23 outstanding worker concerns. Moore, who disclosed that the BWU’s membership has seen a significant increase in recent times with roughly 700 new members this year alone, said workers were no longer in the mood to remain silent in the face of unfair practices. “[Waiting] patiently, certainly in our industrial relation system, has become one where a worker is submissive and month-on-month, year-on-year, waiting, and the proverbial cup is still empty, is still dry. Yet workers in a small society, 166 square miles, are seeing those who leave them with the empty cup seemingly living the life, and it has to stop,” she insisted. The trade union leader further suggested that the Labour Department was failing workers. She said the number of work stoppages recorded this year demonstrated that many employee issues brought to the department’s attention were not being addressed. “The situation of KFC should not have been allowed to happen, and certainly not when we have had instances where my officers at the union have escalated matters to the Labour Department. If you tell a company ‘we are escalating this matter to the Labour Department’, the companies don’t care. All of these are the kind of tensions that cause workers generally to understand that something else is required,” Moore said. She contended that although the Chief Labour Officer and supporting staff have several pieces of legislation to support their work, and efforts have been made to increase protections for workers, employees will continue to experience issues within their workplaces if there is no enforcement. “The Chief Labour Officer in his role or her role can go and monitor, and I don’t think enough is being done in that regard,” she said. “There is a danger of having good legislation on the books and having poor enforcement. Our labour inspectorate definitely has to be beefed up; the Barbados Workers’ Union under my predecessor called for it; I have made repeated calls for it…. Certainly in previous years, [I] have called for there to be an improvement in the resourcing of the Labour Department. I don’t only mean in terms of headcount, I mean in terms of the skill sets that are necessary to execute,” Moore added. shamarblunt@barbadostoday.bb]]>