CTUSAB in plea for unity a decade after withdrawal of unions 

As workers across Barbados prepare to celebrate Labour Day on May 1, the island’s umbrella trade union body has called on the nation’s oldest union to bury the hatchet and return to the fold after a decade apart.

The Congress of Trade Unions and Staff Associations of Barbados (CTUSAB) has also extended the olive branch to other unions who withdrew membership.

The Barbados Workers’ Union (BWU), under then general secretary Roy Trotman, pulled out of CTUSAB in 2014, contending that the umbrella body and the Ministry of Labour were conspiring against the union. 

CTUSAB General Secretary Dennis De Peiza told Barbados TODAY: “We are open as a congress…the Barbados Workers’ Union was part of the congress…. The Barbados Workers’ Union chose to remove itself…for what reasons…only the Barbados Workers’ Union can tell you. Whether they have any intentions to rejoin and be part of the umbrella body? The door is open.” 

CTUSAB has reached out to the BWU on a number of occasions through various means, including by the use of emissaries but without success, he said.

“But we will always be hopeful that one day the umbrella body will reflect that it has the full support of the trade unions in Barbados as member organisations, so we can sing with one voice, and to represent the interest of workers in Barbados and the people of Barbados,” De Peiza declared.

At the time of pulling out, Trotman said the union’s decision to cut ties with CTUSAB was “an effort to prevent a deliberate effort to marginalise the Barbados Workers’ Union and to prevent this trade union . . . from exercising the voice we have used effectively over more than 70 years to develop the cause of workers in both the public sector and in the private sector”.

But on Friday – five days before the labour movement celebrates a time of unity and strength –  De Peiza appealed to the BWU to reflect on its severing ties with the congress and come back home for the sake of a stronger umbrella movement.

He sought to make clear that the CTUSAB has “absolutely” no issue with the BWU or any other trade union. The Barbados Secondary Teachers Union (BSTU) and the Association of Principals of Public Primary Schools (APPPS) had also quit the congress.

“The irony about it,” DePeiza argued, “is that we all sit at the table at various meetings and fora, and we all associate with, and identify a common cause, and we all complement each other. We are never involved in any antagonism.”  

He added: “So, I don’t know what is the purpose then, of it all, when we can still relate in the way I have spoken to, at the table…try to identify what is best for the workers of Barbados and to ensure the movement does justice to the cause that we supposed to do.

“We hope that everybody would have some sense…that sense would prevail…. The [three] I mentioned have never given any reasons for their removal. But whatever the reasons are, we hope that they would somehow be able to reflect, and like the Prodigal son…a lost sheep has come back to where they belong.”

“I hope that time would prove us to be in a good place, by everybody recognising that things happen, there are differences, whatever they may be…but fences can be mended.”

In a separate development, CTUSAB will not be staging any Labour Day celebrations this year because it would be overshadowed by the 82-year-old BWU’s long-standing mass event.

De Peiza said while the congress and its affiliate members embrace the occasion, it is not in the business of competing with any other labour unions.

“You have to evaluate anything you are doing, and if it is that there is going to be a jump and wave, a big party that is geared toward attracting the public for what they call in Barbados a summer dance and a wuk up, a fete, you can’t beat that. You have to be cognisant of the fact that the public will go where they may seem to be getting value for money,” he said.

emmanueljoseph@barbadostoday.bb