BWU always in negotiation mode: Moore

General Secretary of the Barbados Workers Union, Senator Toni Moore, has assured that the BWU was always in negotiation mode.

Moore’s comment came as a response during a brief interview with the media following Thursday night’s meeting for committees of management which took place at Solidarity House.

Moore reported that even though they would have liked to negotiate for a 15 per cent increase, they were appreciative of the five per cent increase that would go to their workers across the board.

“I am sure, as expressed by our constituents here today, that our wider membership, even though they may not be thrilled at the fact that they don’t have truckloads of money to be looking forward to, there is a certain appreciation to the context within which the increase was agreed and the fact that the financial imposition of retroactivity would perhaps be a pill that our Government purse could not swallow at this time. So the bigger commitment of the BWU was ensuring that pensionable emoluments was the order of the day,” she said.

“We were clear from going into the discussions that the Government would have favoured a cost of living allowance and we are pleased that the outcome of the discussion would shift us away from a one off payout.”

Moore highlighted that the introduction of the National Responsibility Levy imposed a great burden on the entire nation and they would have spoken out about it.

“With the NSRL repealed, the rapid shift increases to inflationary impact and so on will be moderated. So we will continue discussions in the public sector and the private sector to see even where there were those areas where we were not able to have a settlement achieved that we will perhaps now still see one,” she said.

“I know that a number of areas will be tightening but the BWU is always in negotiation mode and that is why our executive council has maintained a policy decision that we would present to companies a 15 per cent increase to demonstrate that very fact and we will continue to do our best to see how we can keep our members as closely aligned to cost of living shifts as possible.”