Mottley: Morris off-base

OPPOSITION Leader Mia Mottley has taken issue with a recent assertion by prominent historian Robert “Bobby” Morris that she is controlling the Unions. She says this is not true and he “ought to have known better.”

Furthermore she noted that Members of Parliament being a part of the labour movement is not unusual in Barbados.

Speaking to the media recently, Mottley stated: “He is a historian like the Prime Minister and he therefore would know that the first General Secretary and President of the Barbados Workers’ Union was respectably Mr. Hugh Springer and Sir Grantley Adams and Frank Walcott succeeded Mr. Hugh Springer and all three of them served as MPs for the BLP.”

“Frank Walcott then became an independent and then a Member of Parliament for the DLP. But at one time they also had Mr. Evelyn Greaves, Sir Roy Trotman and he himself, Mr. Bobby Morris all served for the DLP in the very same parliament of 1986 while Sir Frank served as President of the senate.

“My first engagement as a Member of Parliament came in January 1991. While George [Payne] served in Parliament with Leroy Trotman (now Sir), Bobby Morris and Evelyn Greaves from the BWU, I reported to Sir Frank Walcott who is president of the Senate as a senator. So in that Parliament of Barbados four members of the DLP belonged to the BWU.”

In response to the criticism levelled against BWU General Secretary Toni Moore, Mottley said, “To the best of my knowledge the General Secretary of the BWU is not a member of the BLP. I do not know who she supports. I would hope that she supports a party that is progressive and the only party that is progressive now in Barbados is the BLP. But other than that I can say no more,” she said. (JH)