The Tribune

By RASHAD ROLLE

Tribune Staff Reporter

rrolle@tribunemedia.net

EMPLOYEES of the Bahamas Taxi Cab Union claim some of them have not been paid for as many as 16 weeks of work this year.

The Bahamas Taxi Cab Union organises taxi drivers in the Bahamas and has contracts to work with such institutions as Bahamasair, providing transportation to tourists and others.

Oliver Curtis, Matthew Smith and Terry Bowles yesterday said they quit work as taxi drivers because they are fed up with a union that refuses to give them what is owed.

The union does not always pay drivers on time – or at all, the drivers claim.

Mr Smith, who has worked with the union for five years, said he and his fellow drivers went to see Social Services Minister Melanie Griffin last week to request assistance in buying groceries for their families.

The minister then allowed them to get food stamps and informed them of steps they could take to receive help with their rent payments. “All of us went to the shop last night and got grocery,” he said.

“People at the union still moving about and the company still paying its bills, but no driver getting paid and they ain’ telling us nothing,” he said, adding: “I blame us because if we did stop from the first time they did this, this wouldn’t have gotten so far. Just this morning one of the supervisors told a driver that if he didn’t get on the bus and do the work, he knew what would happen.”

Mr Bowles, who has worked with the union for 15 years and is responsible for three of his family members, including his two children, said: “We have families and bills to take care of. We’ve quit until they give us our money. Other people are afraid to speak out. The four remaining people working there are going to be worked to death. They too scared to speak.”

Another driver, Mr Curtis, who has worked with the union for 13 years and is responsible for five people in his family, said he is nearing eviction from his home because of money owed to his landlord. He added that he and the other drivers have been threatened for speaking out about not receiving their salaries. “Even our pension money, which by law they shouldn’t touch, we went to them and asked about it and they told us it isn’t there anymore. That’s about two thousand dollars worth of pension that has gone unaccounted for,” he added.

When The Tribune spoke to acting president of the union, Drexel Gibson, yesterday, Mr Gibson said he was unaware of the problems the drivers are facing because he became president of the union on October 10th after the previous president, Leon Griffin, left.

Asked about the process by which employees are paid, he said: “Cheques come in to us at the end of the month from the organisations we have contracts with and then drivers get paid.”

In response to Mr Gibson’s statement that he was unaware of the problems drivers face, Mr Bowles said: “I think he should’ve known. He was in place all day yesterday, but he didn’t say anything to us. He hasn’t made an attempt to understand the situation and I’m sure other people told him about it. We’ve been talking about it for a long time.”