Submitted by Anthony Davis
GOVERNMENT has been hit by a bombshell, the shock waves from which will impact the scores of retrenched workers hoping for compensation soon. In a dramatic show of disgust, eight of the nine members of the Employment Rights Tribunal (ERT), including its chairperson Traece Codrington, have resigned with ‘immediate effect – Nation Newspaper 17 December 2014
Well, well, well!
Pray tell me, Mr, union man, where were the unions when the minister responsible for the NCC workers was making his decisions about whom to fire? You were nowhere to be found because you were in bed with Government. How come you waited until the people were sent home to play that you are interested in their affairs? If there is anyone to be sued it is the Minister of Labour for failing to provide the necessary accommodation, secretariat, and equipment. We are no longer slaves where we must sit on the ground, whereas Massa sits in his fine chair.
Former PM, Owen Arthur, said:”Massa day done!”
If you had done your duty from the beginning it would not have come to this, unless you expect the members of the tribunal to bring their own equipment and find accommodation for themselves. If one starts wrong one ends wrong. You are now trying to save your own hides – nothing else. Every time a minister is wanted to face the press, he/she absconds. I wonder where she has gone?
They do their own thing and then can’t face the music!
“Ironically, had the basics been met, the tribunal could have commenced in 2013 as there would be no need to focus the collective energy on administrative functions,” they said in the letter.
My mind boggles. I thought that the tribunal was to be only set up to deal with the NCC affair. This makes it even worse! Is there no accommodation anywhere in Barbados which this “people-centred” Government could find? Is it possible that the Minister of Finance did NOT have the money for the Minister of Labour to set up the necessary accommodation, secretariat and equipment for the tribunal, whereas he has enough for high-end toys, and could pour $120 million into the always “soon ready to start again” “All Seasons”?
When it comes to the needs of the poor, the needy and the vulnerable this Government is always unwilling to help, yet it expects them to pay more and more taxes so that they can be paid. This is a very sad state of affairs. The BWA has a spanking new $ 60 million building with lots of space, because there is not the manpower to fill it. Could the tribunal not have been set up in there?
It is incomprehensible how something as important as this could take so many eons to set up!
Under the headline:”What next? FORMER NCC WORKERS ANGERED BY NEWS OF TRIBUNAL RESIGNATIONS” on page 4 of “Barbados TODAY” dated 17 December, 2014 it stated:”St. George resident Cynthia Ifill, who broke down in tears about the situation during an interview last month, accused the former tribunal members of not having their interest at heart.”
“It sounds to me like a waste of time. If they resign now that means they never had our interest at heart. Is it (justice) going to take longer or is it going to happen at all because they will have to look for a different set of people now. Is it going to happen? It’s very frustrating because I don’t know where we are going from here now. Where are we going?” Ifill asked.
It is NOT the tribunal’s fault!
The fault lies fairly and squarely at the feet of the Minister of Labour and your representatives in the hierarchy of the BWU and the NUPW. The tribunal cannot operate from under a tamarind tree somewhere, and so they – who could have started work since 2013 – needed the prerequisite conditions under which they could carry out their duties properly. They have been waiting since 2013 for somewhere to set up their office, and up to now that has not happened. If they had never resigned, we would not have known the scale of this fiasco.
I think that the Minister of Labour should resign!
“Procrastination is the thief of time.”
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