Submitted by HAMILTON HILL
On this a brisk and dreary first of November morning on Long Island the obvious change in the temperature dictates a change in the way one spends a day off from work in say July, August or even September. Too cold and surely much too windy to rake leaves, I have a built in excuse for the mistress as to why perusing social media has taken precedence over the chores called yard work, for me more appropriately labelled as punishment. After checking email my first stop is always BU but through the need to see an obituary of someone for whom my appreciation knew no bounds, I headed straight to nationnews.com.
It was there that I saw the headline “Shocker For NUPW.” Captioned beneath the headline was a picture of workers paying rapt attention {and I wondered for the life of me why} to their general secretary Dennis Clarke. As I read the story I was taken aback by the report that this union was at a loss as to why the management and board of the Barbados Community College was being disrespectful towards it. Going downhill it suggested. Again I was taken aback for not only had the door been left ajar for quite sometime but the horse had long bolted and cleared that and a few other hills as well. “It is scandalous” Dennis Clarke was quoted as saying. Right here is where this writer made the connection. Dennis Clarke the general secretary of the NUPW and the character known as Eric Exhaust in the popular Power Master Batteries commercial may well be one and the same. Always blowing hot air. Where was this righteous indignation earlier when the onslaught was unleashed upon those with the least capacity to fend it off?
There was a time when one common bond held together every group that dabbled in trade unionism. That binding tie was fearless defense of the rights of workers in Barbados. In the era of which I speak there would have been some amalgamation of these splintered pieces so that one unifying body would have ensured that even if the promise of no governmental retrenchment was broken, there would have been facilities put in place to properly compensate those displaced. Instead what did we see? One union telling its members that representation of part time employees was not within its ambit, after shamelessly taking their weekly remunerations. Hapless souls drawing strength and courage from each other so as to make intercession on their own behalf to an uncaring administration that does not give two hoots about the plight of the poor.
There are those who will see as heavy handed the response of the board of the BCC to the attempts of the NUPW to sit around the table of collective bargaining. I do not, for I am firm in my belief that those who lay with dogs get up with fleas. The same sweetheart deal that would have bought your thunderous silence while this train wreck of an administration shoved the greaseless tax pole up the ass of the working man back then, still obtains today so go sit down with Dr Dolittle, the minister of referrals. First stop on the way to “King Silence” and then on to the nonexistent tribunal. Before Eric Exhaust takes his seat in front of ” King Silence” one wishes that he would be gracious enough to tell us this.
If scandalous is the term used to identify the treatment meted out to the NUPW what adjective best describes the representation sold by the very same NUPW?
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