Minister of Finance speaks on trade unions

Finance Minister, Chris Sinckler, is questioning the stance of some of this island’s trade unions in recent months.

Delivering remarks during last Saturday night’s Democratic Labour Party, City branch meeting, he accused the unions of seeking to fight with the government rather than against the private sector in terms of protecting of jobs.

“The government of Barbados is trying to save jobs and trying to ensure that as many people remain employed as possible. We are trying to maintain and ensure that services that are critical: sanitation, water and so forth are provided for the public of Barbados of who constitutes their members.

“This is what we are fighting for and rather than fighting with us, you have some unions in Barbados that have decided to join the private sector, the conservative private sector to fight against the government of Barbados. Now that is a historic day in the history of Barbados because the people of Barbados are now squared off against their unions and some of the anti-union private sector entities,” he said.

Commenting on the march where 20 000 persons took to the streets in protest against government’s eight per cent hike in the National Social Responsibility Levy, he claimed that several people who were involved in the action from various private sector entities had received walking papers a few weeks afterwards, without protest from the labour movement.

“You will see in the last few months company after company coming out and saying ‘we are laying off this amount’ or ‘we are restructuring this amount’ and there is a stony silence out of the unions,” Sinckler accused. (JMB)