The Tribune

By DENISE MAYCOCK

Tribune Freeport Reporter

dmaycock@tribunemedia.net

VETERAN Trade Union activist Lionel Morley is encouraged by the outpouring of support locally and internationally for the union’s efforts to establish a union for workers at the Freeport Container Port.

“It means that our brothers and sisters here and our union colleagues abroad out there care about what is happening up there to workers,” he said yesterday.

Mr Morley has applied to the Registrar for a registration certificate for The Longshoreman Union to represent workers at the container port, but it has not been granted.  

“They are stalling and delaying the process, but workers remain optimistic about the prospect of the container port being unionised,” he told The Tribune.

“This has been a long, hard battle, workers have lost their lives and workers are exposed to hazardous chemicals and conditions and they do not have workers’ compensation package if they are injured in an industrial accident,” Mr Morley said.

He said that it appears that politicians and government are anti-union.

In the last few months, local religious leaders and various union groups in Grand Bahama have thrown their support behind container port workers.  

Trade Union Congress president Obie Ferguson called it “criminal” that workers are not being allowed to organise or form a union at the container port. And recently, the International Longshoremen Association (ILA), one of the largest unions of maritime workers in North America, has become involved, supporting the efforts of dockworkers at FCP to be unionised.

Harold J Daggett, president of the ILA, has written a letter to Freeport Container Port officials, demanding they allow dockworkers to freely organise a labour union without interference or coercion.  

Mr Morley believes that the support of ILA is significant.   

“ILA is a big organisation, and I would have never taken on this initiative if there was not some form of commitment by them. This group has the capacity to really stop everything that is moving or coming our way, and their support I believe signifies a new day for the workers,” he said.