The Tribune

By YOURI KEMP

Tribune Business Reporter

ykemp@tribunemedia.net

A union leader yesterday warned that the labour movement will “not sit around twiddling our thumbs” as he voiced displeasure with the Government’s failure to progress multiple industrial agreement negotiations.

Obie Ferguson, the Trade Union Congress (TUC) president, said that while the umbrella union body was advancing the labour-friendly Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) agree with the now-governing Progressive Liberal Party (PLP) prior to the September 2021 general election, the speed at which industrial talks are moving with several government agencies leaves something to be desired.

“A number of industrial agreements are pending and they have not been completed. They are not progressing as we would want them to,” he asserted. “So we want everybody to understand that we are not going to sit around twiddling our thumbs when people are having to go up and down all over the place to get industrial agreements completed. That is not what we agreed to. There are outstanding monies owed to unions. We want them to be paid.”

Mr Ferguson said negotiations should not have taken six or seven years to complete, but voiced hope that Van Delaney’s appointment as the new registrar of trade unions will help speed up the process.

Noting that consultation is key to the TUC’s partnership with the Government, Mr Ferguson took issue with the Government’s failure to reply to queries over the Grand Lucayan’s impending sale. “The deputy prime minister, we wrote to him, we made some inquiries to him. He hasn’t seemed to have responded for whatever reason, but that is not what we agreed to,” he added.

Warning that the trade unions must be part of the discussions around every major development and investment project in The Bahamas, he said: “We want to let him know that we will do what we have to do. We’re going to call him out. We are not happy with that and we want the Bahamian public to understand not because we sign an agreement means that we are not going to speak to issues.

“We signed for better, not for what we had. So we want to let him know that and we want to do it publicly.” Mr Ferguson shied away from commenting on the newly-formed union umbrella body, the Bahamas National Alliance Trade Union Congress (BNATUC), saying it had nothing to do with the TUC. He added that the Alliance needed to have a stronger group of unions to be able to describe itself as a “powerhouse”.

The TUC’s affiliate members include the Bahamas Electrical Workers Union and the Bahamas Electrical Managerial Union; the Bahamas Nurses Union; the Consultant Physicians Staff Association; and the Public Managers Union (PMU).

Arguing that the MoU signed with the PLP by the TUC and National Congress of Trade Unions of The Bahamas (NCTUB) was “not politically motivated,” Mr Ferguson said: “I think it is very difficult to make that case because before the MoU was signed and executed, all of the political parties have been given the same opportunity with the same document, and we didn’t amend it. But they chose not to sign it.

“So the PLP came and signed it, and at the time it was signed both for the TUC and the NCTUB, but I can assure you it’s nothing to do with politics.” Mr Ferguson vowed that if the needs of the unions are not met as outlined in the MoU, Bahamians will see the TUC “move in the interest of workers”.