It has not come as a surprise to learn that the government of Barbados rejected the wage proposal from the union to increase public sector wages. The government promised last year if the NSRL had achieved the objective the request for a wages increase or a coping subsidy would have been considered. Can one safely…
It has not come as a surprise to learn that the government of Barbados rejected the wage proposal from the union to increase public sector wages. The government promised last year if the NSRL had achieved the objective the request for a wages increase or a coping subsidy would have been considered. Can one safely conclude that the revenue collected from the NSRL did not achieve the objective? May inquiring minds ask why?
Simple Simon I think you will find there is a much more obvious reason.
@Frustrated … March 23, 2018 at 2:19 PM #
“This gov’t has done nothing workable to solve the problems because the civil service is the vote swing in this country and have been untouchable since 1995.”
If the civil service is cut in half the unions cannot threat the gov anymore to be the decisive swing vote.
The civil service is some kind of brake pad for any development in Barbados. Ergo: Cutting down the civil service is a national duty.
come to ontario check out our sunshine list thats how you treat employees. An incompetant cop, a political hiring, doesnt even have to come to work to make over 200000 dollars.
@lawson March 24, 2018 at 6:33 AM “come to ontario check out our sunshine list thats how you treat employees…”
And to make it easier for you here is the Sunshine List
https://www.ontario.ca/page/public-sector-salary-disclosure
The names, positions, salaries and total taxable benefits of Ontario’s public sector employees paid $100,000 or more in a calendar year.
I hope that there are at least a few, or more that a few Bajans on there.
@Tron March 23, 2018 at 11:51 PM “If the civil service is cut in half the unions cannot threat the gov anymore to be the decisive swing vote.”
You keep harping on this “cut 10,000 civil servants” hobby horse (to mix my metaphors lol) but have you costed your idea?
And if not do you now care to cost it here for us? Because we hear all kinds of political promises and threats but people rarely tell us what this will cost in dollars or in pain and what if anything we will have to do to assuage the pain. Will the public sector be able to absorb these 10,000? Some of them? All of them? None of them?
And if not, do you plan to work a final solution on the civil servants, do you plan to shoot them, to crack their heads? What?
If the private sector cannot or will not put these former civil servants to work how will Barbados Light and Power, FLOW, and Barbados Water Authority receive their money the next week, the next month the next year? Or won’t these companies and others miss the loss of income.
We take it that these civil servants unlike our Dear Loving Prime minister are just plain folk, without a lot of savings [since the civil service does not pay very well] and with small children, elderly parents etc who are dependent on the income of the civil servants. These civil servants between them may have 18,000 children, and perhaps as many as 5,000 elderly parents who themselves may have minimal incomes insufficient to meet their daily needs, especially their increasingly complex medical needs as they age.
Solutions please.
People like to drag facile solutions into the public domain, but like Ben Carson at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development they may well discover that political/social/economic problems are a lot more complex than brain surgery.
Dealing wid people ain’t easy, easy like brain surgery.
It a lot more complex.
@Simple Simon March 24, 2018 at 8:35 AM “Will the public sector be able to absorb these 10,000? Some of them? All of them? None of them?”
CORRECTION: Will the private sector be able to absorb these 10,000? Some of them? All of them? None of them?”
@ Simple Simon March 24, 2018 at 8:35 AM
“And if not do you now care to cost it here for us? Because we hear all kinds of political promises and threats but people rarely tell us what this will cost in dollars or in pain and what if anything we will have to do to assuage the pain. Will the public sector be able to absorb these 10,000? Some of them? All of them? None of them?”
They (the excess to requirements) would end up the same place they came from in the first place.
The same place where Fumble once threatened to send them packing. The cane fields or workplaces of their parents and certainly grandparents.
Why don’t you ask the same question to the thousands of the same low-pay workers who were sent home from the same public sector after the 2013 general elections despite the iron-clad election promise that they would be looked after from cradle to grave?
How long do you expect to underwrite the make-believe lifestyles of these pseudo-educated welfare parasites and political hangers-on by borrowing other people’s money?
Why can’t this army of occupation be cut down to size with the ‘excess’ waste discarded on the dump heap of the voluntary idle to join the over 75,000 already there?
Do you really feel money grows on trees?
Let the lazy-ass mis-educated Bajans stop looking for handouts and start earning a tough living in the modern world just like the Jamaicans and Guyanese have to do to survive today.
The world does not owe you lazy Bajan bastards a living and your little island, as you stupidly believe, is not the centre of the globe around which all economic systems must rotate.
It is from the fields these black hands came and to which they will be forced to return to survive.
As dust is to dust and ashes is to ashes so too would those black unemployed souls have to return the fields of their ancestors. How many of those excess hands can be used to suppliantly serve tourists in your fast becoming one cylinder economy?
Get back to basics by looking after the land which the Lord thy God stole from the white people who stole it from the Amerindians and gave to you according the lyrics of your National anthem.
millertheanunnaki March 24, 2018 at 9:32 AM “How long do you expect to underwrite the make-believe lifestyles of these pseudo-educated welfare parasites and political hangers-on by borrowing other people’s money? Why can’t this army of occupation be cut down to size with the ‘excess’ waste discarded on the dump heap of the voluntary idle to join the over 75,000 already there? Do you really feel money grows on trees?…lazy-ass mis-educated Bajans…The world does not owe you lazy Bajan bastards a living”
Why you doan wait ’till your trough put before you bubble in it?
I was questioning tron, not you.
Still waiting for a REASONABLE answer from tron.
I know that money does not grow on trees. I paid my 2018 income tax in Barbados up to last week. When last have you paid taxes in Barbados? I will never refer to other human being as “waste.” people who regard other human beings as “waste” are soon enough ready to dispose of those human beings in incinerators or by guillotines.
Since the civil servants did not create Barbados’ economic problems why do you and tron and others wish to work a final solution on them?
I ask again instead of facile statements.
For solid workable solutions, solutions which will benefit former civil servants, the private sector and public revenue.
Now start REASONING.
The time for facile statements and emotionalism has long passed.
@Simple Simon March 24, 2018 at 9:50 AM
“Now start REASONING.
The time for facile statements and emotionalism has long passed.”
You are quite right!
And that is what the IMF is there for.
To bring “Reasoning” leading to decision-making to cut the army of occupation by a third; and not based on your emotional outbursts, clearly not grounded in the realty of what your country is undergoing.
Do you know that your country is expected to run out of foreign reserves by the end of April after having been forced to dip into its rainy day savings with the IMF called SDR’s?
Do you realize that every dollar a public sector worker spends, at least 80 cents must be supported by 40 cents in US currency in imports?
There are no more fairy godmothers aka loansharks out there to bail your asses out unless you sell your land and political donkeys as is taking place with the Chinese and the likes of the gangster Butch and your locally domiciled cartel of Maloney Bjerkham &Co.
BTW, you do have examples in the region to learn from. Why not Jamaica from which you Bajans like to copy everything including herb-smoking and lewd music, and more recently, its garrison-type politics and attendant vote buying and violence?
Little forex, in Simon the simian terms’, simply means hardships for the same Bajans you would wish to keep on the public sector welfare roll.
Hardships only your fore-parents would have been able to imagine and endure.
Now get your bloody head out of the sand (should that be South coast shit?) like the proverbial ostrich and face up to what is about to fall on your foolish Bajan head.
@Simple Simon March 24, 2018 at 8:35 AM #
With a civil service bloated like this, Barbados will never recover and will fall back behind most other countries in South America and Africa. Such a civil service is a typical sign of failing countries. Look at Parkinson’s law of triviality. In Barbados there is only one cake with a specific size to distribute. If the civil service eats 80 % of the cake, the private sector cannot expand in order make more forex.
I understand your concern about the people who work in gov positions since more than 50 years, doing little or nothing. Sometimes you have to sacrifice a few to save the rest. It is like a surgery. You do not ask the inflamed appendix for a permission to do the necessary surgery.
@Simple Simon March 24, 2018 at 8:35 AM #
Like Tron says they have to GO.
Solutions please. Don’t come asking about solutions, your Fuf _ _ politicians got you into this mess let them find the solutions.
The term CIVIL WAR comes to mind, this would solve several problems, reduce the civil service, eliminate all politicians etc. Oh YES this is Barbados the meek will starve on the streets nurtured by various religious organizations, stating God will provide. Or then there is the yellow menace from the east which may provide immediate relief but long term strife, as they say BUYER BEWARE.
IF YOU LYE DOWN WITH THE DOGS EXPECT TO GET FLEES.
prodigal I heard Mr Ellis trying to trip up Mr McDowall after entertaining Straker,s Tenantry,the Returning National Dem jackass who is always harping on Dodds prison and who funny enough got talk for Ms Mottley but when confronted with Ms Mottley on the show said he had no questions for her as I assume he was afraid,but calling her name every day since on both shows.Mr Ellis also allowedthe pleasant day Dem from St James to talk a lot of rubbish,giving these three Dems loads of time while shutting down Tall Boy ,Wesley and the Stats man regularly.On top of this Mr Ellis seems to have gotten Mr Wickham off the show replacing his show with the People,s Parliament.This is political season and Mr Ellis could have replaced Mr Johnson,Ms Gale or Mr Layne,none of whom is as popular as Mr Wickham who should have two slots,per week,in my opinion but he sings in a different choir to Mr Ellis and does not look for any balance,like Ellis,therefore I believe he will be chopped,like Nafatarie Caddle before him.As Patrick King stated Mr Ellis ,seems to have an agenda for this Government as I remember him on many Mondays playing any speech from the PM on the sunday at Branch Meetings etc wheater the listeners wish to hear it or not.Therefore without Mr Wickham I personally will find listening to the others especially Mr Johnson and Mr Layne challenging.
Prodigal Son March 23, 2018 at 10:02 PM #
Can anyone say what was David Ellis’ agenda as he tried to intimidate Akanni McDowell today with a stupid line of questioning?
“Dont you consider that you have failed?”
I like you, Prodigal Son, was taken aback by Mr Ellis’ line of questioning and really Mr McDowell was unprepared to respond properly…Only in the loosest of senses would i consider that the unions have failed insofar as they did not get their pay hike!!!!…But this is not by any way shape, form or fashion is this Mr McDowell’s or the NUPW’s lack of trying….It is is the utter CONTEMPT this govt has shown to everyone in this country( that is not a DEM) that is just TASTELESS.
Really and truly the next step for the unions HAS to be industrial action if only to show this “govt” who their maker really is!!!.It is also my opinion that the unions MUST strike to continue being relevant in the eyes of their membership. A 0% pay hike after 10 yrs is TOTALLY UNACCEPTABLE!!! and for this govt to think they can get away with removing it as a point to be negotiated on single handedly CANNOT go unchallenged!!!!! Workers in 10 yrs had to endure 10 years of inflation, an increase in VAT, an imposition and an increase in NSRL
workers at the lower end not receiving their reverse tax credit. This is in the face of the Froon getting a new Benz and the self-serving corrupt fools of this “govt” restoring it 10% pay cut. Who de ASS this govt think it is!! In my view this is now an illegitimate govt….it has lost its mandate since March 6th and continue to use this 90 day “loop hole” to continue getting pay and further impose its lunacy on this country. Added to this, the form to which this group of wild boys will communicate this to the NUPW and BWU is further insult to injury….they did not have the decency to call the Union Leaders into a meeting and state specifically why the pay hike is not possible (even though we all know why). This is blatant disrespect to them. If i was a union leader and saw this letter come to me, i would have burned it and told my membership to prepare for WAR with this govt.
I am not surprised what Fumble and Friends do anymore. This govt never cared about the Social Partnership or any body which causes them to give account to it…Look at what they did to the PAC….they changed its composition and was considering removing it altogether.
Let me say i am not oblivious to the BIG Picture. I suspect any action by the unions will be suspended until after the general elections. I don’t think the unions would want any industrial action manipulated or to be perceived to be advantageous to any political party.
DLP,
There is no money left. Every wage hike will accelerate the loss of foreign reserves. Neither the size and nor the level of salaries of the Barbadian civil service fits to a tiny island with a tourism industry based on heavy tax concessions and a vanishing offshore financial industry.
You have the following options which I would like to call the “Great Barbadian Dilemma”:
23 % higher salary and devaluation within 1 month.
0 % higher salary and devaluation postponed for another 6 months.
23 % higher salaries and firing half of the Barbadian civil service
or firing 25 % of the Barbadian civil service, prevention of devaluation and a modest wage hike (say 1-2 % per year) for the next 10 years.
Which option do you want? False national pride or rational industry?
Tron March 24, 2018 at 6:51 PM #
23 % higher salary and devaluation within 1 month.(Quote)
But the Barbados dollar has been devalued by 8 per cent over the last year. Or are we just closing our eyes and pretending it has not happened?
@Tron March 24, 2018 at 11:42 AM “I understand your concern about the people who work in gov positions”
You misinterpret me. None of my relatives or friends work in the civil service. None of them depend on government goods or services so it may be said that I have no skin in the game.
I asked you to tell me what economic and social costs the laying off of 10,000 civil servants would have, not only on the civil servants but also specifically on the private sector.
You have still not answered my questions, which was to cost the impact of your proposal. That is to put real-real numbers to your proposal.
I believe that you have not answered because you cannot. Because you have not done the brain work necessary to put real-real numbers to your proposal.
Your laziness maybe?
@Wily Coyote March 24, 2018 at 1:11 PM Like Tron says they have to GO. Solutions please. Don’t come asking about solutions, your Fuf _ _ politicians got you into this mess let them find the solutions. The term CIVIL WAR comes to mind…”
Ah yes.
You guys can put facile proposals, but in truth you have not thought them through, since all you can suggest is that we kill some people, or let some people starve to death. Ahh yes killing people is always an excellent solution to people problems. Adolph Hitler thought the same. And how well did that work for him?
I think that you guys are just too plain lazy to THINK of solutions.
If you are lazy, why don’t you just come right out and say “I am a lazy, thoughtless phucker?
Tron March 24, 2018 at 6:51 PM “23 % higher salary and devaluation within 1 month.”
Good Lord silly people. When a union asks for 23% salary hike, the union is not really expecting a 23% salary hike and only people who spent too much time in sunday school and not enough time haggling in markets misunderstands the unions.
So the unions say that they want 23%
A sensible government starts negotiating until the two parties come to a REASONABLE agreement. But this government has spent ten years not negotiating with the unions. And where has that got us? Would negotiating until REASON was reached would have been such a bad thing?
Only a foolish government says “neffen fa you”and stops the negotiating process.
Simple,
I will answer your question. My proposed remedy works like many other effective remedies against lethal diseases. The first months or even years, the patient will feel lots of pain, but he will survive at the end and regain his old strength.
The present remedy applied during the last ten years works like opium: sedating the population but killing the island within the next five to ten years.
@Simple Simon March 24, 2018 at 7:19 PM #
“what economic and social costs the laying off of 10,000 civil servants”
The cost are going to be tremendous, however the costs of not laying off civil servants is more tremendous. It’s like jumping off a 100 foot cliff vs jumping off a 500 foot cliff. The 100 foot jumper MAY SURVIVE but the 500 foot jumper is DEAD.
“I think that you guys are just too plain lazy to THINK of solutions.”
Its not a question of LAZY, its a question of immense complexity created by a bunch of JACKASS’s and any realistic solution will automatically be thrown in the bin as impractical by the same bunch of JACKASS’s.
Time to wake up and smell the roses, they smell a lot skunky, similar the the south coast sewage system. BWA and Political management cannot solve a sewage issue that the Romans were doing a 1000 years ago, economic management is way over their head’s.
Your remedy suggests not pain for the patient, but death for the patient because you the doctor doesn’t know what to do.
@Wily Coyote March 24, 2018 at 7:49 PM “The cost are going to be tremendous, however the costs of not laying off civil servants is more tremendous. It’s like jumping off a 100 foot cliff vs jumping off a 500 foot cliff. The 100 foot jumper MAY SURVIVE but the 500 foot jumper is DEAD.
No Wily. Jumping off a 100 foot cliff and jumping off a 500 foot cliff has exactly the same result. The jumper is dead, dead, dead.
Did you know that jumps of 14 feet result in 50% mortality? Jumps of 100 feet result in 100% mortality.
And besides nobody including you is going to volunteer to jump.
So how do you plan to get these jumpers?
@Simple Simon March 24, 2018 at 7:59 PM #
“And besides nobody including you is going to volunteer to jump.
So how do you plan to get these jumpers?”
I realize its a very misunderstood word in BARBADOS, its called, as Mr. Trump says
YOUR FIRED.
What’s the fuss ??
It was the BLP administration in 1978 that legislated that all MP’s would receive a salary after Parliament has been dissolved…….and until general elections have been called.
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