BWU head stresses job security, fair treatment in public service

Persistent administrative failures and delays in paying contracted public service workers were a recurring theme in Parliament on Tuesday, as government backbench MP Toni Moore acknowledged the progress made by the government over the past seven years but also pointed to the imperfections in the system.

St George North MP Moore, the general secretary of the Barbados Workers Union, said that the government’s progress is a reprieve following the previous administration’s nine years of zero movement for public servants.

But she highlighted issues that still need to be addressed: “The issue of contract workers is one that remains a vexing issue. The issue of workers not getting acting pay in a timely manner, not being paid those who are on temporary appointments, and not receiving other entitlements remains a vexing matter.”

Moore recalled a situation with a contractual worker who did not receive payment due to an oversight from one ministry that led to the lack of payment from another. She noted that these issues should not continue. “These are situations that are not acceptable and they are situations in which the people who are responsible should be held accountable because it’s OK for us when we sit cushy going into work and knowing that our salary is assured but not doing the things that we need to do to make sure that other mouths can be fed in this country. So there are situations like that that breed discontent within the public service.”

Like Christ Church South MP, opposition leader Ralph Thorne, she highlighted the fundamental problem of hiring contractual workers for jobs that should be long-term.

“We can accept that when you were on an IMF programme initially, you had to look at different ways to do things to still put bread in people’s mouth, even if you could not offer the long-term security that full-time employment would have offered. But I think, for instance, Mr Deputy Speaker, of the 360 workers, now the 720 workers, still, after over five years, they are on contracts for service.”

She argued that these workers clearly perform ongoing essential roles: “Not good enough because we all drive around this country, and we can see that there is a need for those workers. We can see that there’s also a need, perhaps for the augmentation of workers doing that particular job. And even if not, augmentation or reorganisation of how those workers in NCC and the others over in MTW should work together so that this country, the objective of keeping this country clean, does not only remain an objective, but it is actually one that we can say is achieved, because we are falling short in that area.”

Moore explained that their unstable status denies them job security, access to loans, and proper national insurance coverage.

She said: “It denies them the opportunity for security, the opportunity to go at Christmas time and secure a loan that can come out, the payments can be deducted from the salary because they are under no clear contract where the financial institutions know that they’re going to be able to get their money in a timely manner, weekly or biweekly or monthly or anything.”

The MP warned that this position undermines the sustainability of national insurance and future retirement security: “It is also a vexing issue because we have spent time at least in the last three to four years talking about the sustainability of the National Insurance systems. How is it that we want to make a system sustainable so it continues to be the lifeline for workers, and those workers are not assured that lifeline?”

Moore said she hoped that this issue for contractual workers is addressed soon.

(LG)