Come back BWU!

Even in saying his goodbyes as head of the Congress of Trade Unions and Staff Associations of Barbados (CTUSAB), Cedric Murrell expressed his wish that the Barbados Workers’ Union (BWU) returns to the umbrella body.

“It is my hope that now that the congress has come of age, now that it has demonstrated to all and sundry its maturity and independence of thought, that other decisions would be made to ensure that there is a united labour movement in Barbados,” he said, while at the 12th Biennial Delegates’ Conference at the 3Ws Oval of the Cave Hill Campus of the University of the West Indies.

It was in April 2013 that the BWU cut ties with CTUSAB when the then General Secretary Sir Roy Trotman accused that there had been a deliberate effort to marginalise the BWU and announced the break away from the congress. While five years have passed and a new General Secretary has been elected, the BWU still remains outside of the congress; a regret of Murrell.

Listing several issues on the mission critical list to be completed by the Congress, Murrell told those gathered there has to be an incentivising of workers across both sectors within this period of International Monetary Fund adjustment; the correction of staffing shortages and deployments in essential services like teaching, nursing and security services; and the improvement of labour management relations in the public sector with unions and public sector managers.

“Four, completion of revisions to the Public Service Act; five, the establishment of a Protective Services Commission; six, the operationalisation of the teachers’ service; and seven the enhancement of the capacity and capability of the social partnership by way of an expanded Secretariat,” he added. (JMB)

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