Submitted by William Skinner
…Barbados Labour Party has been in the main supported by the traditional corporate sector …
In our midst, there are some very skilful manipulators of public opinion, who would like to give the impression that the trade union movement has only been in bed with the Democratic Labour Party. This is a great lie. The truth is that both the Barbados Labour Party and the Democratic Labour Party have enjoyed incestuous relationships with the trade unions. I say unions because a very close and objective observation would reveal that none of the major unions has avoided being hijacked, at some point or the other, by members of the two ruling parties.
Ever since the fall of Grantley Adams, the Barbados Labour Party has been in the main supported by the traditional corporate sector and really had no need for the financing of its politics either in money or kind from the BWU. This left the field wide open for Errol Barrow to inflame the traditional white corporate sector and skilfully create a black rising business/professional class that has supported the Democratic Labour Party. Barrow established a very clever bond of capital and Labour and with great cunning, convinced the masses that the Dems were for them and the Bees for the whites. The Bees equally cunning deliberately started to paint the Dems as anti-employer and the ploy of these two behemoths parties has continued. And it has worked amazingly well.
I first encountered the ruthlessness of the BLP/DLP and their unionists henchmen back in the mid 70’s, when under the distinguished leadership of Comrade John Cumberbatch, the Barbados Union of Teachers locked horns with the Dems over the legislating of salaries. Tom Adams as Leader of the Opposition BLP made a great speech from Parliament and said that he would NEVER legislate salaries. He became Prime Minister and proceeded to do exactly that! Then, Obrien Trotman, who was the General Secretary of the NUPW and in the forefront of the struggle against Barrow legislating salaries, became a member of Tom Adams’ cabinet. So, Sir Roy Trotman being a member of the Dems and general secretary of the BWU is nothing new.
What we see today are the fruits of destruction and anti-labour sentiment that both parties have skilfully planted via opportunistic trade unionists and some of the most ruthless operatives of both the Barbados Labour Party and the Democratic Labour Party. Within the Barbados Union of Teachers, there were some very politically driven party loyalists, who only supported the union when their party was in opposition. It is more than just a twist of fate, that there are at least three sitting Members of Parliament, who were active in the BUT back in the day. It is no twist of fate either that some of the high profile appointments in the Ministry of Education, have always landed in the laps of former active union members, who are either supporters of the BLP or DLP. The Ministry of Education is the bedlam of high end political patronage.
The Barbados that is now tottering on the brink of economic collapse was hatched in the 70’s when the evolving upper middle class began to believe that they were at Massa’s table. They went after the teachers; the police; the nurses and the civil servants with a determined vengeance. They were supported by the political management class (BLP/DLP). Those who warned of this dangerous trend were branded as failures and misfits.
In other words within the current scenario there is a vicious battle of the classes. It is the middle class being pounded by the very powerful and now entrenched upper class. Watching and pulling the strings are the wealthy, both black and white, who think that victory is certain. They are collectively enjoying the assault on the working class and the weakening of the trade union movement. But they are making one simple and perhaps silly mistake. This is not the Barbados of 1937 and nobody will be pushing over bread carts (Peter Wickham). This class warfare now grounded in economic uncertainty could lead us to a place from whence we may never return. The divide and rule approach may very well backfire on those who maybe counting their chickens before they hatch. The manipulation of our people and island state must cease or we all will feel it! Should blood flow, it will be on the hands of those manipulators, who frequent Roebuck and George Streets.
There are many now crying crocodile tears for Barbados. The same ones who sought to destroy it.
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Well said William…….The Pandora’s box is wide open and cannot be resealed…..we are on a bumpy journey to who knows where.
What is it with Trotman?
The sugar workers dispute is about a lack of respect, so was the withdrawal of the BWU from CTUSAB.
He is clearly feeling a bit challenged. Maybe it would be best if he quietly retired, as announced.
$700,000 down the drain.
David | April 16, 2014 at 7:35 PM |
$700,000 down the drain.@
No Problem DAVID , DBLP will hike sugar and never let it drop when all is clear, We will get pure white sugar which will help the doctor with drugs with people with white sugar problems.
The DBLP will hike More TAXES to cover the sugar 700,000 gap , TAX , TAX TAX party and the workers and the union will get the blame.
More Pain to come , Brace for Impact ,
.
“Trade Unions and the Great Conspiracy
posted on April 16, 2014 by David | 5 Comments
Submitted by William Skinner
…Barbados Labour Party has been in the main supported by the traditional corporate sector …
…Barbados Labour Party has been in the main supported by the traditional corporate sector …
In our midst, there are some very skilful manipulators of public opinion, who would like to give the impression that the trade union movement has only been in bed with the Democratic Labour Party. This is a great lie. The truth is that both the Barbados Labour Party and the Democratic Labour Party have enjoyed incestuous relationships with the trade unions.”
Very thought provoking submission Skins but except for the fact that the Barbados Labour Party evolved out of the labour movement led by Sir Grantley Adams ( then referred to as Moses) to improve the conditions of workers in the thirties. When internal self-Government was granted to Barbados in 1956, and Sir Grantley became Premier he left the movement in the hands of Sir Hugh Springer and Sir Frank Walcott. which grew into the powerful and respected organisation it was until now..So it cannot be ignored that what transpired then was to the benefit of the labour movement and much different to what has transpired in recent times with trade union leaders holding offices in the movement while sitting as members of the DLP. The folly of this ‘trying to serve two masters’ arrangement was exposed when the then union leader Mr Morris put party before worker by choosing to abstain in the vote to cut the salaries of workers whom he was supposed to be representing. I hold no brief for Mr Obrien Trotman but the public service union was a fledgling organisation with no teeth during the short time he was employed as General Secretary and he promptly resigned from the Union like Judas Iscariot on assuming office under the banner of the BLP whereas Mr Walcott, Mr Greaves and Mr Morris remained in parliament under the banner of the DLP. In my view, the most glaring and incestuous relationship between Party and Labour apart from Mr Morris’ abstention in the crucial salary cut vote was that of Mr Earl Glasgow leader of the Secondary Teachers union and infamous for abandoning the teachers at the last hour for a personal aide pick with Mr Barrow. I might very well be wrong but I cannot remember any trade union leader since the sixties representing the interest of labour in Parliament under the banner of the BLP.
It is the practice in Barbados & elsewhere that during industrial dislocation, while the Union & Employer are meeting to reach settlement of whatever it is that has caused the dislocation, the “status quo ante” applies. This means that the striking workers resume their work duties as a show of “good faith” and respect for the process and the efforts of the negotiators.
It is quite noteworthy that no one has bothered to ask why this has not been the case in this instance. It is even more noteworthy that the CLO, Minister have not dared to suggest this to the parties. had this dislocation been effected by the employer locking out the workers, the Union would have insisted on an “unlocking” as a pre-condition to sitting down to dialogue.
Poor Trotman is being true to his pathetic self in walking around once again insisting (begging) that he must be apologized to. he did it with Alex McDonald & in that case even offered to write the apology himself, to himself, for Alex to sign. Leslie would be advised to do as Alex did & ignore the old Fart.
Finally, on the issue of Enhanced Severance.
In 1991 the Severance Payment Act provided for Severance to be paid at 4 weeks for every complete year. The DLP government reduced the level of the benefit as a precursor to the drastic cuts that were waged on Barbados back then as part of the austerity measures that saw thousands going home. As a result, we now have a tiered severance payment calculation along the lines of 2.5 weeks pay for the first 10 years, 3 weeks pay for the next 10 years & 3.5 weeks pay for the next 13 years service.
Cardinal Leroy Trotman was a member of Parliament at that time. The government of that day won the vote that enabled it to cut the severance entitlement, by ONE vote. What that means is that ONE vote could have stopped them & would have preserved the right of Barbadian workers to received what would be now an “Enhanced Severance payment”.
Leroy Trotman was in Barbados on the day in question. But he was not in parliament as he had been elected to be to represent the interests of those who voted for him, and the workers of Barbados. Instead, he could have been and was seen at the office of the CCL – Caribbean Congress of Labour, with cheques in his hands.
If you doubt me; ask Caswell Franklyn.
For the recent generation Sir Trotman’s legacy will be Sandy Lane – fail, Royal Shop – fail, withdrawal from CTUSAB, fail, building a robust succession plan – fail…
@PDC
Again you have to stop your generalizations. In the same way government exercising its power through the Westminster system needs compensating organs to exact accountability and balance – the same with the labour movement. What has gone wrong is that trade unions have not made adjustments to sustain their effectiveness through the years. The labour movement is about protecting personalities and legacies.
@Balance
Barbados Labour Party evolved out of the labour movement led by Sir Grantley Adams ( then referred to as Moses
+++++++++++++
“Moses”? That I didn’t know, Michael Manley was nicknamed “Joshua” by his supporters, seems like the people in the Caribbean are always looking for someone to lead them somewhere.
Trade Unionism and Trade Unions represent a by gone age in Barbados.
These outdated, archaic, useless and backward socio-political features do not represent the future for Barbados.
Whilst it is true that trade unionism and trade unions did fairly well on the whole in organizing workers into labor movements in the struggle for better working conditions and for more agreeable terms and conditions of work against very oppressive harsh social and working conditions and the anti-human cruel exploitative behaviours of those who represented the planter/merchant classes or the vestiges of those and of those who controlled working conditions in government too from the 1930s to the 1980s, they have, since the 80s, become either anti-social progress and development of this country, or not amenable to such progress and development – ironically some of which they have been responsible for.
For example, trade union leaders continue to politically exploit fast diminishing numbers of unionized workers for their own narrowing political purposes, even though such workers and others too are rightly using many other means of social progress and development to help better themselves and others.
Furthermore, it is clear too that this employer/employee business owner/worker dialectic must come to an end.
All groups of persons in this country must now realize that no longer must workers be severely used – alongside certain classes of property – to help achieve greater social, political, material and financial benefits for the oligarchic “few” and their cohorts.
Trade Union leaders and union delegates would prefer that persons who have the statuses of workers remain of those demeaning statuses in this country until they die.
But they are wrong.
Trade Union leaders and union delegates would prefer these persons continue to WORK for others and the same others to continue to WORK or EMPLOY them.
But, again, they are so wrong.
But the leaders of trade unions who are insisting that these persons, who work in various parts of industry and commerce, in government and in NGOs and in other parts remain workers, so that they are able to suck the blood of the same workers, are just as wrong and regressive in their thinking and in their modus operandi and on the wrong side of history, as those employers who believe too that those persons who are workers must ever remain workers for them to continue to politically exploit the workers by ideological political financial and other means.
For, ALL persons in Barbados who are regarded by many others as workers must rise beyond such shackles of work and being workers.
Too, ALL persons who are presently viewing themselves as workers must remove from themselves the shackles of work and the workplace.
Like business owners have long been doing – these workers must begin to realize that they must become established business owners, either on their own or in partnerships with others – and this urging only applies if they have not started to do so yet – and this is if too they are ever going to do so – that they must become established business owners by helping to fashion such thinking by helping to create such conditions that are necessary and sufficient – in their various communities – in their various towns, nooks and crannies, in the said workplaces – to facilitate their using their own property and their own services to assist in achieving greater social, political, material and financial benefits from themselves and many others in the wider society.
They must therefore see the greater power, authority, status, prestige and respect that can accrue to them from dealing in their own property and passing it on to others and getting money or any thing else that is agreed upon between themselves, and in dealing in their own services and allowing persons to use their services and at the same time get money or anything else agreed upon.
With the lowly status of a worker, with the very exploitative conditions of work, with the degradation of the work place, and with the vicious work culture, such empowering liberating conditions can never be realized.
Down with Trade Unionism and Trade Unions!!
PDC
Mr Robert Morris, trade unionist, and former member of the House of Assembly, did not abstain from voting for the 8 per cent cut in 1991. He voted for it.
He was even reported in some section of the media years ago as having said that if he had to do it again he would.
PDC
David,
You are in no position or authority to inform our ideological philosophical political outlooks or perspectives on much that is demonstrably factual or factually informed.
Instead, what you must do is to challenge the very facts upon which these generalizations are based.
You must present “your” facts and let us dissect them ourselves.
Where are these generalizations that we are making without factual bases?
Recently, you are not impressing us with many of your very loose unfounded charges against us.
The more we read you, the more we are seeing the evidence of much of your political conservatism.
If you support trade unionism and trade unions, well then say so.
We are not for trade unionism and trade unions at all.
Respect our positions on that.
PDC
@PDC
Again because your position is challenged BU is being disrespful?
You need settle.
David,
Where are you challenging our position on the matter that Trade Unionism and Trade Unions represent a by gone era in the history of Barbados? How and to what extent are you doing so? Let us deal with the facts? Where are you doing such? Show us? Demonstrate?
PDC
Daddy Lizard
At 10:28 pm you wrote:
It is the practice in Barbados & elsewhere that during industrial dislocation, while the Union & Employer are meeting to reach settlement of whatever it is that has caused the dislocation, the “status quo ante” applies. This means that the striking workers resume their work duties as a show of “good faith” and respect for the process and the efforts of the negotiators.
This stupidness does not apply elsewhere. It started happening in negotiations with the BWU under the leadership of Leroy Trotman, which always worked out to the detriment of the workers. Put simply, he misled the workers and sold out, for which he received a knighthood.
I can confirm that during the debate and subsequent vote to cut severance pay, Trotman was in the island but stayed away from the House. At that time, he was the President of the Caribbean Congress of Labour and he chose to go to their offices to sign cheques rather than represent the workers. I know that to be true because I saw him with my own eyes.
David | April 17, 2014 at 6:31 AM |
For the recent generation Sir Trotman’s legacy will be Sandy Lane – fail, Royal Shop – fail, withdrawal from CTUSAB, fail, building a robust succession plan – fail..@
David , You got it wrong, He did what he was to do , That is nothing, No showing up, His Mission was not the Peoples Mission ,
So far he batting a 100%, so how can that be failing mark , His Mission, of a Spy behind enemy Lines, He can also be added to the Crook , Liar and Scumbag roll, As you can see the people love pain, No title of Sir in Barbados helps anyone nor group , Their mission and Oath is to help other title pimp holders and to the Gate Keeper,
Sir Ham , Sir Cow, Sir Beckles, Sir Trotman was paid off by the Royal Shop,
Direct 2nd hand information, Study it .
Those pimp titles will be the end of all of them, they really thought it would make them look better and more respectable while they got on with the job of running scams, selling out their own people stealing from the elderly, young, unborn, just born, dead and dying, it just makes them look like what they truly are, sell-outs, thieves, liars, etc, etc, just like what is going on in England …….and the list goes on.
Sir Roy and the government should be apologizing to taxpayers regarding these workers who have been paid for the last 10 months for not driving a stroke.
David | April 17, 2014 at 11:15 AM |
Sir Roy and the government should be apologizing to taxpayers regarding these workers who have been paid for the last 10 months for not driving a stroke@
Sir Roy and the government= DBLP same
workers who have been paid for the last 10 months for not driving a stroke= paid vote, vote buying , nothing new ,keeping the people off the streets =Plan is working well.
The Best way Sir Roy can show support , Is to give Back the title Sir, That Will show the workers who side he is on,
As for now everything is going to their Plans , not the members.
Trotman firmly believes that union members are a notch or two below he intellectual level…whey? in EVERY SINGLE dispute that the pivotal point that he insists he will call out a strike for is if ‘the union members do not get an apology from the particular employer!!!! now members have serious grievances but he somehow demands that the main agenda is ‘AN APOLOGY’. and then if he gets it, he makes this statement that ‘we got what we wanted’.
Sandy Lane
the Store on Broad street
LIME
and now the sugar workers dispute and I could go on.
only the blind would put there money here in any union in Barbados. who we all know negotiate on behalf of the EMPLOYERS and NOT THE EMPLOYEES…..
Local news reporting the BWU asking for an enhanced package for Transport Board retrenched workers as well.
Pinkie
Trotman’s demand for an apology is more sinister than it would appear at first glance. If the employer apologises that would be an admission that the employer erred and as such the union would be entitled to prevail in its dispute. Along with that the employer would have to compensate the workers for any loss that they suffered. That is they would have to be paid any lost wages as a result of the strike because the strike would have been the employer’s fault.
In these circumstances, an apology would be a costly exercise for the employer. The workers would not then be looking to the union for a stipend to assist with their expenses.
>
We have stated before that the writings of William Skinner, on any matter, should be weighted heavier than all others. That determination is rooted in his history, his fearlessness in confronting all sides and his unique political insights. This article demonstrates the Skinner genius which is appreciated by too few. But the greatest amongst us are seldom recognized in their lifetime. Let us hasten the day when the ‘bones’ of the greatest personalities of our generations, John Cumberbatch, Briggs Clarke, William Skinner and Leroy Harewood, amongst others, will be exhumed.
Wait Pacha, I feel I great too you know … ha ha ha.
Look I hear Ellis today .. the first time for the year, and by the feel of it, the last, doing the Ellis Step…. HA HA HA HA. Mr. P, for years a simpleton with a big mouth, and now finally coming into his own in his evening years, today gave an emotional delivery, the essence of which was that he would “NEVER EVER vote for the Democratic Labour Party again …!”
Now Mr P has spent years building up credentials as an ardent DEM … and to have come on the radio with such passionate anti-government talk had Ellis bopping and weaving. Man the only other person that I know ’bout in all these years that coulda mek Ellis dance sa much was the anti-American … ha ha ha. But Ellis pull every slime ball trick he had .. He even try tah discredit P … after all these years … He wanted “evidence” and “names” and that P was all talk …. ha ha ha. The Jackass even accused P of using “Bolshevik rhetoric” .. ha ha ha … (now you know Ellis never had an original thought in he life) .. now where he get da from nah … Fox New?
P score some serious blows pun Ellis, but as it always is with megalomaniacs, they never know when they have been bruised.
Barrow established a very clever bond of capital and Labour and with great cunning, convinced the masses that the Dems were for them and the Bees for the whites.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Amazing ….. I said much the same thing many times.
The difference is that I did not add the part about B and D!!
I agree totally that the 1960 politicians, led by Erroll Walton Barrow divided Barbadians based on imagined colour and set the scene for the country’s demise.
Divide and conquer …. except he didn’t figure on the destroy part.
All politicians followed as it suited the occasion … so we have for example Liz Thompson and her white Caucasian remarks in the 1990’s and Glyne Clarke and his rally club remarks in the 2000’s.
Meanwhile, the imagined white ownership of capital has changed hands … except that a very real set of foreigners have stepped in to take advantage of our idiot leaders’ imaginary double talk.
I can easily to date many of the contributors on BU by watching their opinions on race and colour.
Dipper did a damn good brainwashing job … top class!!
He marked many of the contributors on BU with his warped, but not very clever or original attempts at division …. kind of like a mini Hitler!!
Leroy Trotman is just another brainwashed example for us all to watch and from whom we can learn.
It really is not his fault.
The Dipper is a National Hero …
BTW … Liz din’ all wrong ….
David,
You need to get, and read a copy of the book by Dr Rodney Worrell – Pan Africanism in Barbados – An Analysis of the Activities of the Major 20th Century Pan-African Formations in Barbados, to greater understand that many liberal minded middle class black people like Grantley Adams, Hugh Springer, took over the local trade union movement in the 1940 and from then until now it has been so.
You need to greater understand that they had managed to take over from those people, like Clement Payne, who had – at those later stages of the development of organized labor in Barbados – infused it with much black consciousness and black nationalism alongside the usual trade union consciousness and principles.
Though Worrell failed to address it in the said text, the fact is that trade unions in Barbados have been founded on such a false dialectic of employers/employees, capital(ist)/labor that, for example, the unionized workers of the BWU and the NUPW are not owners of those trade unions, that these unions have no owners of them either. (There was a dialectic between the enslaved/enslaver, one between the serf and the over lord, and that helped to secure the elimination their modes of production almost absolutely).
We posit that those who later doused the trade union movement in Barbados with mainly worker/wage/collective bargaining ideologies rather than continuing to build on the stronger ideologies and philosophies such as Afro-centrism, black redemption, human solidarity, communalism, etc saw it a way to use the former ideologies and philosophies to seriously exploit unionized workers and their own loyalties ties responsibilities to the unions, to their own personal political advantages more than any thing else. Imagine that up to today there are NO owners of these unions yet these unions own buildings, vehicles and such like? Imagine that up today there are policies in these unions where if you are not working you cannot be members?
The fact of the matter is that there has never been a dialectic between employers/employees, capitalist/labor, what so ever, globally.
The historical forces that brought about the enslaved/enslaver relationships and the serf/overlord relationships, did not bring about the capital(ist)/labor relationships.
In Barbados, therefore, trade unions were founded not on opposition or resistance to the dominant capitalist mode of production here and to government’s still substantial incorporation into the said dominant capitalist mode of production, but on accommodation and subservience to it, as an aberrant outgrowth of it.
With the transitions from masters and servants, to bosses and workers, to employers and employees locally, and as more and more employers and employees realize at this stage how important they are to another in countless ways (the enslaver did not understand that about the enslaved, nor did the overlord understand that too about the serf/ capitalism understood it better), and once they understand how greater they themselves can actualize – employers becoming more or less owners of capital than vertically downwards or diagonally downwards towards becoming employees – employees vertically upwards or diagonally upwards towards becoming owners of capital, if not already – it is only a matter of time before trade unions go to out of existence.
For not only do employees contribute towards the existence of employers but also employers contribute towards the existence of employees. Hence, there is not one without the other. The is substantial interdependence between the roles.
Just as employers have commercial functions, employees have commercial functions as well – so just as employers use their own services to get money, employees use their own services to get money too, and just as employers agree with employees to get money, employees agree employers to get money.
Employees and employers share use of many of the tools machines, vehicles that the businesses own.
There are no nominal remunerations to or costs of remunerations to labor, and there are no nominal remunerations to or cost of remunerations to capital (assets). There are remunerations that given by persons to other persons on the basis of the use of money, or the real actual cost of use of it.
So, as the falseness of this dialectic unravels and is the more exposed, so will the trade unions in Barbados go into oblivion.
PDC
Enough propaganda … the union leaders are in bed with the government .. they did not stand up for 3000 so now they want to pretend they standing up for 57 … please … the sugar strike was nothing more than a face saving drill by the union leadership … wanna think the people foolish ….
@ John
…you would always jump on a simple fact “Barrow established a very clever bond of capital and Labour and with great cunning” to support your ongoing “PDC-like” nonsense that the whites of Barbados were the best thing that happened since mankind learned to slice bread.
Barrow found a racist, apartheid system that operated on the basis that people like you DESERVE to be at the top, while those like Bushie deserve to be field labour paid peanuts to do your bidding.
Divide and rule Bushie’s donkey…
Barrow simply EXPOSED your racism and convinced blacks that they had EVERY RIGHT to enjoy the kind of lifestyle that you did..
If there is a problem with the results of his intervention – it is that blacks mimicking the lifestyle of whites in Barbados is NOT a sustainable model ….cause wunna was never bout no hard work. So now black Bajans feel that success means doing as little work as possible – for as much money as possible. Such a lifestyle is only sustainable if you own slaves, or if you are an attractive prostitute.
The labour movement has been led by simpletons who continued to operate under the mantra that success means more money for less work…..always UNSUSTAINABLE.
We have now reached the inevitable tipping point.
Even Caswell continues to fight a petty, foolish ill-conceived battle to get “fair wages” for “workers”. The time has long passed when the labour movement should have matured into a new OWNER CLASS who promoted cooperative ownership, hard work, collective responsibility and higher personal community values – rather than trying to follow the white man’s system of getting the most money for the least effort…
The whole place is too small minded…..having the potential to be golden, but displaying all the characteristics of brass….
@Bush Tea
You are correct of course. We have invested billions in education and we need to leverage this advantage over the others.
@ Bush Tea : “The time has long passed when the labour movement should have matured into a new OWNER CLASS who promoted cooperative ownership, hard work, collective responsibility and higher personal community values – rather than trying to follow the white man’s system of getting the most money for the least effort…
While I agree with most of your positions mentioned above , I must say , that the essentially white ownership class did not embrace worker participation at that time because they saw it as communism and an attempt to take away their wealth. However, I must also state that there has always been some form of collusion between the union leaders and the ownership class. In other words, especially in the last 25 years or so, the BWU became less activist and more like partners with the same ownership class. Having said A, I must now say B: The Williams Group of companies seem to have developed some form of worker participation. I know of some long standing workers , who are now directors. Also, our research has revealed that Simpson Motors, seems to be a company that has a good track record with its employees because of the benevolent leadership of its founder.
Unfortunately, in our island state, we can question the motives of every black politician , trade unionist or priest but we are supposed to give all white bajans a free pass. Many of us are afraid to be branded racists. It is a very sad commentary that we don’t want to ever discuss the disparity of wealth. Finally let me say that not all Black employers are known to treat their employees well. However. successful Black companies such as Everson Elcock and Rayside have good track records with their employees
That is why I was particularly shocked to hear Ralph Johnson say that Barbadian workers are lazy , when in fact they built his empire. Again, Harris Paints, has a very good track record and have promoted many of its top workers from within. That to me was the height of ownership class hypocrisy. In one breath the Black workers built white empires , and then were accused of being lazy.
The laziness in Barbados is from the same ownership class that remained in retail mode while the world was moving forward. Along with non-progressive black politicians, they collectively put Barbados on a path of failure.The results of this collusion and backward corporate leadership has ruined agriculture, fisheries and the tourism industry. In other words we cannot put all the blame on the black political management class and give a free pass to the white ownership corporate class. These days it is very hard to recognise , who are the pigs and who are the humans. Animal Farm, Bajan style.
@William
Collusion must not always be taken as negative surely there is a middle ground or give and take between socalled capital and labour to sustain the relationship BUT there is a respectable balance to maintain.
@ David. while this may be true, you will need to show me where this collusion benefited the workers or working class in real terms. I await your response. For the last six years the ownership class has threatened to send home workers every time their demands have not been met. Why did the social partnership fail? We need to have a frank conversation about who gained more from this love affair of labor and capital.
BAFBFP | April 18, 2014 at 12:36 AM |
The Dipper is a National Hero …
++++++++++++++++++++++
Who made him a National Hero? ….the same brainwashed idiots who based their service to country on divide and rule.
William Skinner | April 18, 2014 at 8:41 AM |
@ Bush Tea : “The time has long passed when the labour movement should have matured into a new OWNER CLASS who promoted cooperative ownership, hard work, collective responsibility and higher personal community values – rather than trying to follow the white man’s system of getting the most money for the least effort…
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Isn’t a simpler explanation that there will never be a maturing process until the divide and conquer mentality is replaced!!!
Divide and conquer as Hitler discovered means destruction as well because it is an affront to any human being’s sensibilities.
Humans are social animals whose success is based on cooperation.
…. and if you like “science” check what happened to Neanderthal man who survived and thrived a couple of hundred thousand years in Europe before being effectively extinguished by homo sapiens ….. who incidentally have only been around for 35,000 years.
@William
Evaluating the relationship between labour and capital is ongoing based on other factors. Whether purely command and control from the plantation days to the transition which is still in motion read so called knowledge industry. In the last 20 years owners of capital have held the upper hand for many reasons and unions have had to play a cautious hand. The labour movement as Bush Tea stated needs to chart a new path, its role will not be about pay increases but satisfying a different demand given current state.
@John
Divide and rule the BU household black asses.
If you want to discuss divide and rule invite Bush Tea to Cattlwash to the next lime.
@ balance
Have you forgotten Derek Alleyne of the NUPW. who contested the St. Michael West Central seat under a DLP banner, is now the Director of the Urban Development Commission?
Do you not remember him being on the platform during the 2013 election campaign telling supporters that the BLP does not like poor people because not one BLP member of parliament applied to the UDC for help on behalf of the poor and indigent in their constituency?
What about the NUPW President, Walter Maloney… was he not seen canvassing with the DLP and more so during the 2008 and 2013 election campaigns?
How ethical is it for Maloney, who was endorsed by the union membership to represent them, but this man’s loyalty is to the DLP first?
No salary increase, no increments, public servants being terminated without severance payments, taxing of allowances, solid waste tax, increase in vat… and the only words coming from Maloney [and in true DLP style] is to verbally abuse his critics.
Politics is just another word for public relations … so the Politicians are really just holding fast to their true responsibility by giving the masses an impression of serving them; their responsibility is of course maintaining stability and continuity.
Bush Tea
I learn a new term from Ellis … ha ha ha. You might be hearing this term being used a lot more in the future … “Bolshevik Rhetoric” 3) .. ha ha ha
baffy
“Bolshevik Rhetoric”= another word for bovine excrement
@ William
Ordinary people generally do what they think will achieve their selfish aims. Sometime they even do good things to achieve this….
Do you understand Bizzy now…?
A man who wants to accumulate NUFF NUFF money will either:
– Steal if he thinks he could get away with it
– bribe those in position to facilitate him if that has been shown to work successfully (as we well know)
– give some shares to black employees (if that helps him to get more work and less stress from them in leu of really fair treatment)
– even pay good wages and provide good conditions if this is the only way to get his company to make money. (If you have to employ lots of highly schooled people this becomes a good option.)
HOWEVER
What Bushie is talking about is a situation where ALL OF US ARE EQUAL IN TERMS OF OUR RIGHTS …and the only differentiation will be in our individual ability to be PRODUCTIVE.
IF this were the case than the statistical distribution of wealth and business ownership etc in Barbados would follow the normal bell curve across all races.
This is the goal that trade Unionism should have embraced over the last 40 years…..and again the COOPERATIVE ownership model provides an IDEAL platform on which to build such a model.
@ David
The problem with John is that he is basically a white ‘nice guy’ who probably don’t even know what REALLY goes on down Cattlewash…. Those fellows probably don’t even invite him…. So he just talking a lotta shiite based on books he has read and written from a white perspective.
FAR BETTER to read Lowdown Hoad if you want a genuine non racist white opinion in Barbados.
@ Baffy
It is time you stopped cussing David ( not BU)……uh mean David Ellis……The man tries his best to be balanced, but in all honesty, much like most of those jokers in government who are clearly not from the top drawer, his best efforts are mediocre…
Ellis has access to lots of information but has not been able to distill this data into a meaningful matrix ….so he blows hot and cold….
In the final analysis, a country can ONLY have a good chance of success if it is able to IDENTIFY its (very rare and limited) bright minds, mold them into upright and strong willed citizens, PUT THEM INTO LEADERSHIP POSITIONS, and then pray earnestly for Devine guidance for them…..
…voting for a lotta shiite hounds every 5 years is a damn waste of time and resources…..
HOWEVER
What Bushie is talking about is a situation where ALL OF US ARE EQUAL IN TERMS OF OUR RIGHTS …and the only differentiation will be in our individual ability to be PRODUCTIVE.
IF this were the case than the statistical distribution of wealth and business ownership etc in Barbados would follow the normal bell curve across all races.
This is the goal that trade Unionism should have embraced over the last 40 years…..and again the COOPERATIVE ownership model provides an IDEAL platform on which to build such a model.
……………………………………………………………………………..
BT…you living in cloud coocoo land….where has this ever worked….read Animal Farm again
I will not let David know that you are always in Cattlewash…lol
Vincent
VISION….is the ability to conceptualize realities – even where they may not already exists.
Any idiot cam copy an existing model.
Where there is no VISION…..
…and Cattlewash sweet fuh days….. 🙂
BT….VISION…deals with the doable……listen here….you see a possibility you look at it from all angles and the some more(Feasability study for the youngsters) then you implement on a trial basis,then full scale implementation
What you are talking about was tried by Lenin and then hijacked by Stalin proving that it cannot work….capiche
@Bush Tea
What is dangerous is when the deals have been decided in Cattlewash they are executed at Sandy Lane when Black and White come together.
On Friday, 18 April 2014, Barbados Underground wrote:
>
David….Chuckle…..you have finally twigged.
The cycle is…..poverty to- rich to – poverty…..the poor will always be with us.
@Vincent
In the same way the lust and the readiness in the loins is difficult for many men to ignore when there is a young vagina to be had so too the adulation which beacons when young ministers et al see the opportunities …
On Friday, 18 April 2014, Barbados Underground wrote:
>
GP
“Bolshevik Rhetoric”= bovine excrement”
Nah … I can’ agree. I think idealism is a very good thing. It gives you a focus, an ethos …! I believe yours goes something like “First do no harm …” or something like that, but as a human being I see that as bullshit too … particularly when directed at those who will stab you in the back if given the chance… Old Testament, mah man … ha ha ha …
Bush Tea
I am NOT familiar with the David Ellis that you are referring to. Does your guy also work in radio …?
OK BAFFY
@ Baffy
…your pal…!!
I have to say that any discussion of the Trade Union movement cannot properly proceed without the inclusion of the likes of Wynter Crawford and Clennell Wickham, Clement Payne and just maybe Charles Duncan O’Neal, four true true greats … unlike the Grantley Adams, Errol Barrows and the rest who really were just expedients …
BAFBFP
You forgot about me.
>
Cas … You would gotta dead first before you could be considered with the rest of them … 🙂
Caswell,
Did the grand old Duke of York get his apology? He was claiming victory tonight! What a thing!
Prodigal
That man is a clown. Apology what? He somehow thinks that everybody besides him is foolish. If the employer tendered an apology, it would mean that they were at fault for the strike and would have to pay the workers for the days that they were on strike.
I have told that the strike was an absolute failure. Some of the workers wanted to go back to work from day two but BWU personnel were on site to force compliance.
>
@Caswell
The public was told during the strike Barbados was losing $145, 000 per day, the media has reported that the strike caused 280,000 loses over 7 days.
Can you explain the arithmetic for the BU family?
David
I’m not that good.
>
@ Caswell
Face it Boss
The days of the Union are done…
Even PDC got that right
Wunna fellow are just a pain in the butt now. Employees issues CANNOT be effectively addressed retroactively via “talks”, strikes and “apologies”….
Your considerable talents are needed in the PROACTIVE role of ensuring that ONLY intelligent, upright, honest, managers are allowed to run our national businesses in the first place.
This is where your National Supervisory Committee comes in…..imagine combining the balls of the Auditor General with a real real DPP and a proper COP….and you get the new NSC.
MAN BUP NUH!
The way to protect workers’ interests is to ensure competency, integrity and transparency at the top levels……
Grantley Adams focused on people working in the city … The field workers in the country side did not exist for him … the people who were surviving on subsistence wages and promises of better times. When Clement Payne introduced the notion that virtual slavery still existed on the plantations Adams played ignorant, In fact poor people had to pull their pockets to raise the fifty two dollars that it took to attract Adams to be the advocate in Wickham’s case … some national hero … Adams proceeded to convince Whickham that his life was in danger and that he should leave the country … thereby fulfilling the agenda of the conservatives. (The similarity to Aristide in Haiti is stark …)
After the riots and the Commission, which had to wait until after the war to be acted on, after all, the Nazis were not to know about the true conditions of the workers in the colonies less they use the information for its propaganda value, Adams woke up to the fact that the workers in the fields “did people too”. Ah boy, chance fah a li’l fame and who knows, maybe even a Knighthood ….
Look Norman Manley refused a knighthood, a decision that was influenced by his being refused a commission while serving in the British Army. Forbes Burnham, many times Adams intellectual superior, encouraged many of his close associates to refuse the Queen’s offering. Closer to home George Lamming knew better than to accept it when it was placed before him, but Adams was overjoyed … ecstatic to be a member of the select order ….
My God … Now I know why only Fab Hoyos was the only regional historian that we were introduced to as boys at school …. Conditioning ,,
“Do you not remember him being on the platform during the 2013 election campaign telling supporters that the BLP does not like poor people because not one BLP member of parliament applied to the UDC for help on behalf of the poor and indigent in their constituency?”
I have never heard Mr Alleyne speak on an election platform. I did not attend any of the 2008 meetings and I only paid brief visits to the final meetings of both parties in the 2013 campaign.
BAFBFP; re. your 12:12 am post, Who yuh quoting from? Dah kuhnt be Hoyos?
No no .. Hoyos was very pro Adams … like yourself. No, I am drawing from Crawford and others …
A correction … The $52 was for the Payne defense . Clennell Whickham on the other hand, with all of the good that he was trying to do in exposing the White conservatives, had to pack up shop as a result of a law suit brought on by the same Adams …
Look as bad as Adams was, there was a guy called Henderson Clarke who forced people to “sell their donkeys, carts and chattel houses” so that he could be paid to defend them. And he still had them plead guilty .. thereby saving the courts time and effort. The riots was a godsend for the lawyers knockin’ ‘bot Barbados at the time … (with the honorable exception of Hilton Vaughn)
Oh, and yah can’ faget the Chief Justice, Allan Colleymore … the man that loss way people like Ulrick Grant, Brain Alleyne and Israel Lovell … Man even the Queen’s men did vex with this jackass and delayed giving he a Sirship … probably the only CJ in history to serve without the title …
There should be a National Contempt Square where the effigies of these men should be mounted ….!
Bushie
You like you smoking something. That last comment was deep, deep. It is said that great architects do not see lines when viewing a plan. They already see the completed building.
Oh shoot … but I just remember Herbert Seal … a student Garvey deciding to join the Progressive League … Man Adams mek the man shite … reminiscent of the Mia Mottley/Owen Arthur public spats of late … Politics in modern Barbados got off to a fcuked up start … thanks to a “National Hero” … Who determined these things anyway ..?
@Baffy
There was a commission but isn’t the casting vote always with politicians?
@ Lemuel
Bushie gotta watch you and this “smoking” thing yuh… You like you trying to pin something on the bushman….any insight displayed by Bushie is inspired…..just the Bushman’s luck to be hitting the keys…
@ Baffy
Skippa, if you were to start this NCS (National Contempt Square) you would end up with a serious problem yuh…..
…what land would you have left back…..?
You know how many brass bowls you would have to erect in that square…?
You hear David and Lemuel say that we must learn to live with the brass bowl heroes…?
BAFBFP;
I ent know enuff bout dat period to be either pro or con adams. But the question was trying to indicate that since the source couldn’t be Hoyos, that it was someone else and that you would know. Anyhow, thanks for the alternative education.
I am a firm believer that practically everything that we have been taught at school (primary secondary and tertiary) is far from the actual reality and that the ultimate authors had an agenda that might be coming to fruition soon, a la Bushie’s BBE.
eg. at last some historians seem to be reluctantly admitting that Barbados was continuously populated by indigenous “Indians” practically up to the English settlement. The hidden skeletons of pre historic humans in America are beginning to see the light. The Neanderthals are being seen as another legitimate branch of the Human race and more and more people are coming to the realization that the evidence strongly suggests that the story of Christ and Christianity is just a myth that like other major shapers of human thought and “development” was seeded in our consciousness by unknown entities who have been watching and directing our development for hundreds of thousands of years.
The matrix is real.
are-we-there-yet
Fab Hoyos was a very kind a gentle man … He was very popular among the student body. But he taught a conservative view of history that has pissed a lot of present day (Trevor “Snuffy” Marshall included) off. Wynter Crawford was on the ground in 1937, and he was no fan of Grantley Adams … I believe Woodville Marshall would have worked with Crawford. The Professor is still alive, and it would be great to hear his views on the riots and the formation of the Progressive Legue. Clement Paynes brother was alive in the nineties … It is a pity that these men were allowed to go to their graves virtually untapped.
Yes David, the National Heroes were determined by Owen Arthur (alone …), and there has been no move since then to change anything.
Bush Tea
The effigies do not have to be life sized … the smaller they are the more confined the required space 🙂
The late Kathlyn Drayton of BARP fame … well her son’s name is Professor Richard Drayton, of King’s College. This is a man that lef’ Crumpton Street High as a Barbados Scholar and was schooled at both Harvard and Yale, before being granted a Rhodes Scholarship to plié his trade at various Universities including Cambridge. This fcuker is bright …. His area of expertise … (Rhodes Professor of) Imperial History.
He came back to Barbados about ten years ago to give a lecture at Cave Hill that assessed the true merit of the National Heroes of Barbados. The man mek Adams shite … he apologized of course, but the message was blatant …!
@Baffy
Have read a few of his writings and agree Drayton is a bright boy. Like BT says all the time, if only we had 10 of these bright boys in Barbados to stir the political cesspool…
David
You all dont seem to understand that bright boys are generally run out of Barbados.
I saw it as a junior doctor when hassell and graham ran some good doctors from bout hey.
I myself suffered the same fate
Bright boys are tolerated if you belong to the “club”
I know a trini fella that fraser pressurized throughout his clinical years at QEH, only because the lad had a PhD
@GP
Sadly you are correct, people who are driven by principled positions and demonstrate above average intellect get targeted. Takes a special breed to confront it but god knows we need these people more than at this juncture.
note that hassell and graham get knighted
fraser waiting for his now
how come frank ward aint get knighted too
Hey hey … Georgie … Fraser is from Messiah Street High … Careful now …
David wrote “people who are driven by principled positions and demonstrate above average intellect.”
Too late David.
Barbados is a capitalist consumer driven society. It is all about the bling.
BAFBFP | April 21, 2014 at 6:45 PM |
Hey hey … Georgie … Fraser is from Messiah Street High … Careful now …
I KNOW BAFFY BUT HE AINT NICE HE ONLY CARE BOUT FRASER
HE PRESENTS A NICE VENEER BUT HE IS VERY SUBTLE IN THE WAY HE WORKS BEHIND THE BACK
BUT HE GETTING TRU
SOMETHING WRONG WITH THIS COMPUTER
HA HA HA .. HA HA HA .. Georgie you shouting sa loud, my neighbor now call and ask me “wah happening cross dey …?!” HA HA HA HA
Georgie Porgie
I knew a few bright doctors and I’ve worked with a few bright doctors. And you’re no bright doctor by any stretch of the human imagination. So why don’t you cease and desist from play David as a fool because he isn’t as gullible as he looks.
The DLP and the BLP , the New DBLP Invest in Corruption , Corruption is like any other Business ,Supply Demand ad Greed
Blieve nothing Fraser say to you in fonrt your face. He was the driving force behind the medical school being established here, promising that we would have earned significan fx exchange from the intl students, how many fx students doing medicine here. Can we continue with a medical school here?
NEW BLOOD
YOU ARE CORRECT
THE FOREIGN STUDENTS PREFER THE BOGUS OFFSHORE SCHOOLS
THE FULL MEDICAL SCHOOL IN BIM IS PERHAPS FRASER’S BIGGEST FEATHER IN HIS CAP ON HIS MARCH TO HIS INEVITABLE KNIGHTHOOD
Georgie Porgie
Doc, it would be of great help to ascertain from you, what constitutes a bright doctor in BIM? Surely, not the construction of an offshore medical school? How about the latest medical breakthrough in the fight against: sarcoma, lymphoma, carcinoma and leukemia?
I remember the days when Barbados lacked the kind of technology needed to perform heart as well as brain surgeries.
2) The
Dompey:
Now I too am confused with your latest.
Georgie:
I agree about the medical boys club in Barbados. Without foreign medical students the Cave Hill shall struggle to be viable.
@Lemuel
Who approved the businessplan for the medical school?
HAPPENED WHEN BEE’S WERE IN POWER
DAVID, I THINK PART OF THE PROBLEM IS THAT MOST OVERSEAS STUDENTS AIM TO GO TO USA; SUCH STUDENTS WANT A 4 YEAR RATHER THAN A FIVE YEAR PROGRAM, AND THEY WANT TO DO CLINICALS IN THE USA.
ONLY AIMU AND UNIVERSITY OF GUYANA HAVE A PROGRAM THAT PROVIDES FOR DOING THE FULL COURSE IN ONE LOCATION. MOSTLY INDIANS GO TO AIMU FOR THE FULL COURSE BEFORE GOING TO THEIR HOMELAND.
IT IS POSSIBLE THAT FRASER DIDNT THINK THIS THROUGH OR DID NOT KNOW THE DEMOGRAPHICS OF THE OFFSHORE MED SCHOOL INDUSTRY, OR WAS TOO OPTIMISTIC..
@GP
But this is the point, how was such a weight decision influenced by one man? Sure this is not right given the messy fallout?
Daivid:
Fraser would have had to present various documents to the UWI to get permission to start the medical school; I guess one of them would have been a sort of business plan. The thing the school has going for it is that although new applications were down by 30 and 40 percent for some of the other faculties, the decline for the medical school and law was in the teens – about 18% (Hilary Beckles 2014). So there is some interest. The school also has a good academic staff, but the difficulty is that too many students are being trained annually, about 90. It needs foreign students or we should be training doctors for export.
Fraser alone can not take the blame others were involved and the Ministry of Education too!
@Lemuel
Thanks and this is the point!
MOST OF THE STUDENTS ARE LOCAL STUDENTS I AM TOLD
STUDENTS FROM THE ISLANDS SAY THEY PREFER TO GO TO MONA BECAUSE THEY GET MORE FOR THEIR BUCK THERE.
FRASER COULD TALK SWEET AND HAD A LOT OF CLOUT
WHY DIDNT WALROND START THE SCHOOL? HE WAS SENIOR AND WISER IN MY VIEW.
@GP and Lemuel
Interesting, we have never had this probing of the setup of the medical school before although there have been questions. Is there any public documents which address this issue that you are aware of?
Only the UWI academic board would have those documents or invite Prof. Fraser to do a piece for BU. The Ministry of Education would also have those documents, but they are not public documents. The setting up of the school was not over night.
Why should there be a lack of transparency around the setup of the medical school?
Why should the MoE have agreed to a medical school when regional competition would have challenged any model tabled?
The taxpayers of Barbados given the huge economic cost of a medical student should be confided in read the rationale/businesscasing of the medical school.
You know wunna now gone a spoil a good history session with an equally good discussion on the creation of the Med School. I would like to rise on a point of order and suggest that this discussion be restarted under a new title ,,, after all it deserves to be vented as a separate topic … All those in favour say aye
Georgie Porgie
“Student want to do their clinicals in the US.”
The only way that is possible is if their are Americans students attending one the many American offshore medical schools doc. I do not know how a doctor from Barbados would do his or her residency in the US: when their are malpractice laws, and the ethics of the job, and other federal laws which applies to the residency program? Inform my understanding doc because I haven’t a clue.
The federal government has already placed a restriction on Indians leaving India, who are already doctors and applying to medical schools.
Wynter Crawford was on the ground in 1937, and he was no fan of Grantley Adams … I believe Woodville Marshall would have worked with Crawford. The Professor is still alive, and it would be great to hear his views on the riots and the formation of the Progressive Legue. Clement Paynes brother was alive in the nineties … It is a pity that these men were allowed to go to their graves virtually untapped”
There is a biography of Mr Wynter Crawford edited by Mr Woodville Marshall. The biography indicates that neither Mr Crawford, nor Mr Theodore Brancker nor Mr Hilton Vaughan were fans of Mr Barrow either.
Georgie Porgie
Sorry, slight grammatical error doc, don’t hold it against me though.
David:
I shall try to get something on the medical school for a post.
@ Lemuel | April 21, 2014 at 10:27 PM |
RE The setting up of the school was not over night.
TRUE FRASER WROTE ABOUT IT IN HIS COLUMN IN THE NATION IN LATE 2004 OR 2005. I REMEMBER BEING IN CURACAO TEACHING AT ST MARTINUS MED SCHOOL, AND EMAILING SOME ONE TO ASK MORE ABOUT IT
Thanks Lemuel.
Conspiracy? Its only a Conspiracy if you dont know what is going on, By now We all know what is going on , Therefore the Conspiracy is over , Now its time to Act, Do some thing different , stop getting the results all the time .As you can see it dont work , you not happy , and you all still going home, Just all stay and when the Bills come to your House , send them to the Union and the DBLP =same Crooks, liars and Scumbags
“He came back to Barbados about ten years ago to give a lecture at Cave Hill that assessed the true merit of the National Heroes of Barbados. The man mek Adams shite … he apologized of course, but the message was blatant …!”
Try as much as you might Baff, but the contribution of Mr Grantley Adams to the social landscape of this two by three nation of ours is indelibly written on history’s page- as is Mr Barrow’s- irrespective of their motives or imperfections and nothing you or I say or do can ever erase it.
‘Weep not but learn to follow’ was the admonishment by Canon Frank Pemberton to the mourners in eulogising Sir Grantley.
The comedy of trade union errors and parody of representation continued unabated yesterday at Browne’s Beach with the Trade Union Leadership crying crocodile tears over the layoffs by again trumpeting the innocuous opposition – not about the LAYOFFS- but of ‘ not holding the meeting to discuss the retrenchment of the close to 200 workers which took effect on Wednesday.’ What a load of unacceptable gibberish from a Trade Union Leadership which appears to be seeking in every pronouncement to exonerate the political directorate from the brutish LAY OFF DECISON – which according to their own Dr Estwick could have been avoided – and lay the blame at the doorstep of all else especially those much maligned public officers charged with the responsibility by DUTY of carrying out in difficult circumstances the brutal and confusing policy decisions of an incompetent administration.
In my view,Decency demands it. It is right in the sight of God. It is right in the sight of man, that the Trade Union Leadership stop playing games with the livelihoods of their membership affected by these draconian measures.
Perhaps even the trade unions have now come to realize that it is idiotic to continue to BORROW forex in order to pay people to pretend to work…..
LOOK balance, it is time that Bajans understand that they need to utilize the NATURAL talents that they are born with, along with the free education and social stability that we have enjoyed for the last 70 years – to make a decent living for themselves in DIRECT proportion to the effort and success they are able to achieve….
Trade unions shiite….
The days of freeness and mendicancy cannot be expected to continue in times of austerity….
…and that “proposal” from Dr. Estwick was just high level idiocy….. …mortgage the whole country to complete strangers – so that we can continue to pay brass bowls to pretend to work…?
Steupsss….drop the emotionalism balance….leave that for ac and them…
@Bush Tea
You know politicians will not lead any initiatives which will seek to align a sustainable lifestyle and what we can afford produce. Instead what we have is government surrogates pushing out info just released that Barbados bond yields have increased. Our leaders – including our unions – have colluded to mortgage the future of the next generation.
Thanks for your response Bushie but the substance of my commentary was an attempt to draw attention to the very eloquently put Davidism of ‘ the unions and political directorate to mortgage the future of the next generation by foul means; but it seems that i have failed in my effort.
The union lay down in bed with the politicians and call it ‘Social Partnership’ another term for ‘sell out’. Let’s face it. We have no Unions. Yes, government had to downsize. But are they not the same people who said that noone was going home and that everything was good and dont listen to oppositional propaganda, or did i just imagine that.