BWU gives green light for industrial action at UWI

Only a last-minute compensation settlement between management and workers at the University of the West Indies, Cave Hill campus will avert strike action on Wednesday.

Following a brief work stoppage on Tuesday by employees from various departments – including administration, maintenance, and security – to show their discontent with the university management’s failure to deliver on promised salary increases and better working conditions, the Barbados Workers’ Union (BWU) indicated it had given the green light for industrial action Wednesday.

In a statement, BWU General Secretary Toni Moore expressed deep frustration over the unresolved compensation issues for workers.

After nine months of negotiations with UWI, she said, the patience of the union members had run out.

“The temperature of discontent has risen and it is no longer tenable to continue without taking decisive action. Therefore, the Executive Council of the Barbados Workers’ Union has responded to the instructions from its members at UWI Cave Hill and has given the green light for industrial action to commence tomorrow, January 31, 2024 unless, of course, an appropriate settlement is reached before then,” the union boss said.

She said the patience and resilience of the workers had been tested time and time again, and promises of payment remained unfulfilled.

“Because the university failed to communicate the necessary information to the Ministry of Education before the end of last year, the assurances given by them, contingent on the release of funds from the Ministry of Finance, have not materialised, leaving the staff there at the university as the only group yet to receive their due financial adjustments,” she said.

Earlier in the day, as employees were off the job for about an hour, the BWU’s UWI Division President Geoffrey Mapp explained to Barbados TODAY that a letter from the government in August last year promised a three per cent salary increase for the workers. But he said there was no positive response from the UWI to the decision.

Mapp complained of inconsistency in the treatment of UWI staff compared to other civil servants who have received their increases.

“The blame is going to the central government all the time,” he said. “The workers were looking to get this money because we were in serious discussions between September and October to get this finalised. The civil service and all the other people have gotten their increase. We have always waited on the government and the unions to settle before we approach them or the university regarding our expected increase because the central government is the host country of the Cave Hill Campus. It provides a major part of that money for operation which would include salaries so they can’t be no problem. Why is there a problem?

“The last time we had an increase, it took us 13 months to get the 5 per cent increase. We[‘re] going wait now ’til . . .April 1, for the other three per cent and then gotta wait another two years to get a three per cent increase in salaries? No way!”

The workers also highlighted several other unresolved matters, criticising the university’s management style, and comparing it unfavourably to historical plantation management.

“There are a lot of outstanding grievances that we need to have settled. We have always been extending an olive branch to the organisation but we are always getting the dirty end of the stick,” Mapp declared.

“We had a serious challenge with how things are done here and that is why people don’t like me to tell them . . . but it is a plantation because the management structure and the behaviour of people in management positions mirrors how the plantation used to be run.”
(RG)