Trade Union activist Lionel Morley (right) and protestors by the Freeport Container Port signage at the traffic circle on Warren Levarity Highway on Friday. Photo: Denise Maycock/The Tribune
By DENISE MAYCOCK
Tribune Freeport Reporter
dmaycock@tribunemedia.net
TRADE union activist Lionel Morley led a small protest yesterday near the traffic circle on Warren Levarity Highway leading to the Freeport Container Port (FCP) in his continuing campaign for workers to form a union there.
Mr Morley claims that an attempt is being made by management to help organise an internal union in the container port, where for many years workers have been unable to form a union.
Over the past few months, FCP has come under fire by local unionists, religious leaders and by a major international labour organisation representing dockworkers in the United States, demanding that workers be allowed to freely organise a union.
Mr Morley said that the Registrar of Trade Unions, Robert Farquharson, has yet to issue them a certificate of registration for the Longshoreman Union. “We understand that management have been trying to create a faction among the workers, he claimed. All of a sudden now, management has no problem with an internal union and have began to demonise our officers and anyone who has been a part of the process we have started over the last couple of months,” he claimed.
According to Mr Morley, an employee in the human resources department has started to recruit workers to join her union. He said that internal unions are prone to manipulation from management and have not been successful at the container port, where they have tried to organise an internal union and have had four to five different presidents.
“It’s been 20-plus years, and all of them have been unsuccessful,” said Mr Morley, who strongly believes that labour officials are siding with the management and are intentionally delaying granting the union a registration certificate.
“We have done everything possible, we have applied for registration a few months ago, and Mr Farquahrson continues to say that it is on his desk and that his legal team is looking at it. But he has already given a general certificate of registration to the General Workers Union, who had applied for registration after us,” he said. “They are delaying it in an attempt to circumvent, deny and frustrate this process, and we want to shed the spotlight on what is happening.”
In 2004, Mr Morley said that the container port fired more than 400 workers, and has been hiring part time or casual workers ever since. He has received support from the International Longshoreman Association (ILA), one of the largest unions of maritime workers in North America.
Harold J Daggett, the ILA president, has written to container port officials demanding they allow dockworkers to freely organise a labour union without interference or coercion.
Comments
TheMadHatter 9 years, 4 months ago
Strange that Mr. Morley does not cite even ONE issue that requires the input of a union, or would be helped by a union. Where is the problem?
The Cont Port is one of the VERY FEW providers of good paying jobs left in Freeport. Is his goal to rid the island of it as well? Does he intend not to stop until nobody in Freeport can find a job? Does he hate Bahamians that much that he wishes for them ALL to be unemployed?
The Port has been there for over 20 years like he says, and many persons would LOVE to get hired there.
WHY doesn't he spend his free time working with the Min. of Tourism, and the Min. of Finance and the Min of Foreign Affairs etc. and try to bring MORE companies - like chemical companies - like SYNTEX which I'm sure people like him managed to force out of existence - and other companies like oil companies and hotels and manufacturing plants.
WHY doesn't he try to help that guy who has been trying to make a warehousing operation for the past 5 years but cannot get any help from Government to allow Freeport to be a trans-shipment/warehouse distribution center for the Caribbean. The guy has lots of money and built a huge warehouse (can't remember his name or name of company) - but he is held up by red tape after red tape. I believe he said it would create HUNDREDS of jobs for Bahamians.
Anyone at the Cont. Port who is unhappy could then have options of other places they could work perhaps for better pay and working conditions. The only way employees get treated well is if there are more open jobs than employees - THEN companies have to be nice and attract the best people and pay well and all that or else the employees go somewhere else. But when the situation is like it is in Freeport where there are only like a dozen good employers (if that) - then you either work "for the man" and suck teeth - or you go unemployed. The man has 200 resumes on his desk and can pick, choose, and refuse. TRY TO GET MORE COMPANIES to invest and ALSO try to find a cork for these bitches that keep getting belly swell and making more unemployed people every 9 months.
If he destroys the Container Port and causes them to shut down, pack up, and move out - who then will have any jobs???????? What other companies will then come and invest here, after seeing their destruction along with the stupid mess at BahaMar???????
Does this man have even ONE OUNCE of common sense?
Are the police allowed to arrest him under some kind of trumped-up charge like preserving the peace or whatever and just keep him out of sight for the next few years until Freeport has a chance to breathe and perhaps save itself economically?
TheMadHatter
moncurcool 9 years, 4 months ago
Well said. You are exactly on point. I wish this union leader would read your comments so he can begin to think in an entrepreneurial manner and not a bottom feeder manner.
The_Oracle 9 years, 4 months ago
Unions Books are where a freedom of information act is really needed! VAT has many companies finally running books with some credibility, Government is under IMF and OECD pressure to get its house in order, meanwhile Union membership gets a protest Tee Shirt once in a while for their weekly dues! Does Bahamian union membership even realize what benefits they're paying for but never see? Jimmy Hoffa was a Joke compared to these guys.
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