The Tribune

By KHRISNA VIRGIL

Tribune Staff Reporter

kvirgil@tribunemedia.net

BAHAMAS Customs Immigration and Allied Workers Union Vice-President Sloane Smith is concerned that union members are being intimidated and threatened by “higher ups”.

These latest claims come as relations between the government and the union continue to be strained following the union’s Supreme Court defeat. A judge ruled that the government did not have to consult the union before putting workers on a shift system.

However, Mr Smith told The Tribune yesterday that the union will still hold a strike poll tomorrow over a host of unresolved matters. He further threatened to take other action, which he did not specify, if the scare tactics on union members were continued.

“There is a section in the Industrial Relations Act,” he said, “that deals with intimidation. There is nothing that either of these higher ups can do to get things to go their way.

“Word is coming back to us that they are going around insulting and intimidating staff. When members complain that they are threatening them something is fundamentally wrong with that.

“If they wish to escalate this and try and bust the union, then this union would have to do a little more than reporting to the law. We are prepared to do whatever it takes under the purview of the law.

“They cannot continue to force this shift system among other things down the throats of these workers.”

On Monday, Mr Smith told The Tribune that the union filed a trade dispute in October for the same issues that led them to schedule a strike vote. He said the government merely provided excuses for why their issues could not be resolved in their favour.

Their grievances are tied to a dispute concerning medical coverage for non-uniformed staff, payment of all utilities for persons on transfer and transportation allowances for persons required to travel distances, other than their office.

He explained that uniformed workers in the Customs and Immigration departments have medical insurance, but the departments’ 300 non-uniformed workers – including secretaries and file clerks – do not have medical coverage.

Some of these non-uniformed workers, he added, have been working in their departments for more than 10 years.