Trade Union concern

Speaker of the House of Assembly, Michael Carrington is concerned about the path the trade union movement is taking in this country.

He made this admission during the Democratic Labour Party (DLP) Political Meeting held at Lawrence T-Gay Primary School, firstly pointing out that last year the Unions were operating as a “pressure group” when strike action was called over the increase of
the National Social Responsibility Levy (NSRL).

“They were marching not in furtherance of any trade dispute – a trade dispute is when you are quarrelling over money, wrongful dismissal, etc. But, when you are marching saying that you want government to reverse a tax; the NSRL, that isn’t a trade dispute, you are operating as a ‘pressure group’ and when you are doing that, you are losing your way,” he said.

As it relates to last week’s National Union of Public Workers’ (NUPW) proposed industrial action, Carrington, who is also the Parliamentary Representative for St. Michael West publicly commended the way government responded, as well as the country’s civil servants.

The NUPW called for two days of “protest and resistance”, following Government’s failure to respond to the January 15th deadline regarding a wage increase for public workers. However, reports showed that it was business as usual at most public departments.

“I want to congratulate the way it was handled by the Cabinet and Government of this country. To me it’s a common-sense thing – you can’t tell people that you have no money to afford a salary increase and then when you say they are going to march, going to strike, you suddenly find money to pay them,” he stated.

“I am happy for what was reported in the newspaper, “Action Flops”. But, I wasn’t happy because a Union initiative did not come off, what I was happy about was that the thousands of civil servants in this country saw the nonsense for what is was and turned up in their numbers and went to work. They must be congratulated for that.”

Carrington also told supporters “I heard some of the language, I heard them talking about “Massa day done”. What you need to talk about is how are we going to put the interest of this country first, so we can progress as a nation. How we are going to contribute to this country so that we can get out of whatever economic difficulties we face. That is what we have to be talking about.” (TL)