Submitted by Caswell Franklyn
It would appear that Barbados is in a worse crisis that most people can even imagine. Yesterday (May 6, 2015) Bus Operators of the state-owned Transport Board refused to work citing as their reason the hiring of a person with political connections to fill a vacancy that could have been filled by one of the persons who were made redundant.
The workers are unionised as part of the Barbados Workers’ Union so it was only natural that their union would have sprung to their defence but their response was lukewarm at best. Anyone who listened to the General Secretary on the news would not have gotten the sense of outrage that the workers felt which forced them to withdraw their labour. It seemed as though the union did not want to disclose the real reason behind the strike, as though BWU was protecting someone or something.
The Barbados Labour Party joined in the fray ostensibly to lend their support to the striking workers, but it was more likely that they wanted to score a few political points. But they too refused to adequately put the real reason for the strike in the public domain. Even though the real reason behind the strike was on the lips of all the assembled workers, neither the BWU, the BLP nor the news media was honest enough to accurately report on the real reason for the strike. It would appear that there was a conspiracy to keep the country in the dark.
Quite frankly, I can understand why the Barbados Labour Party refused to be honest: firstly, they are politicians and being honest is not something that local politicians find easy; and disclosing the truth might make one of the political class more than a bit uncomfortable as it appears that protecting each other, even across party lines, takes precedence over anything else.
It is puzzling why the media or the BWU did not reveal the real reason behind the strike, unless they too are politicians, aspiring politicians or controlled by politicians.
The workers were complaining for all to hear or for all who wanted to hear that the Transport Board hired the niece of the Minister to do work that could have been done by one of the retrenched workers. Why did the media, BWU and BLP omit that very pertinent detail?
School children who studied hard for five or more years to take CXC exams were inconvenienced, in getting to examination centres, by this strike. Somebody needs to answer for this piece of nastiness; some heads should roll starting with the Minister’s, if for no other reason than this nastiness happened on his watch, and he is required to accept responsibility for the actions of his officers. But before he leaves, he should send the members of the board packing ahead of himself.
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