Trade unionist slams NUPW for backing NIS reform

A leading international labour figure has raised questions about the former National Insurance Scheme’s transition to the new National Insurance and Social Security Service (NISSS), strongly suggesting the move was a backdoor form of privatisation of social protections.

Sandra Messiah, Sub-regional Secretary for the Caribbean at Public Services International, publicly scolded the National Union of Public Workers (NUPW) for celebrating the move as a major achievement. 

“That’s nothing to be proud of,” she said as she addressed the union’s 79th Annual General Conference on Thursday evening. “Yeah, you keep your members [but] at what cost? At what cost to the other, how many . . . almost 300 000 people in the country? [You] privatised social protection. I mean, it doesn’t even sound right, but that’s what’s happened.”

Messiah argued that free market policies result in “rising inequality, undermining workers’ rights”.

“The PPPs, the so-called private-public partnerships, that’s another form of privatisation,” she contended.

Messiah urged unions to speak out on key issues affecting all workers and citizens, not just their members, such as rising intolerance, nationalism, authoritarianism, growing corporate and financial influence, and lack of progress in tackling the climate crisis. 

“We claim we want to be 100 per cent oil-renewable, but yet we don’t mind if we get some oil. And the resulting social, political, and economic turmoil is creating anger amongst workers, and therefore the conditions for change,” she said.

The labour leader also criticised a “what’s in it for me” culture she sees emerging in unions, diminishing their advocacy role. 

“People ain’t join the union to get 10 per cent discount at a shoe store, they join the union for representation,” she declared.

Messiah called on the NUPW, the largest public sector union in Barbados, to “act like it” and “take the lead on key issues” impacting public services and workers across Barbados. She urged increased investment in trade union education.

“Your audience isn’t just the people in a particular workplace. Your audience is really the entire country. You are users as well as providers of services. Invest in trade union education and training,” she said.

 (RG)