The Tribune

By DENISE MAYCOCK

Tribune Freeport Reporter

dmaycock@tribunemedia.net

TRADE union activist Lionel Morley has been granted registration for the Longshoreman Union, but claims that road blocks are continually being put up to prevent him from representing dockworkers at the Freeport Container Port.

Mr Morley claimed during a recent interview that an in-house union has been created by management at the Freeport Container Port. He also alleged that workers are being intimidated and warned against posting anything on the premises concerning any other union without approval by management.

“We sent out a written communication to workers informing them that we were granted registration a week ago and it was posted on the notice board. A memo was then posted by management warning against such unauthorised postings,” he said last week.

Mr Morley had been agitating for better working conditions and pay for workers at the container port for sometime. This spring, he applied to the registrar of trade unions to be registered.

He has alleged that the container port is anti-union and has blocked several different groups of employees that had attempted to form a union there in the past ten years.

Mr Morley has claimed that registration of Longshoreman Union was stalled and held up to allow management ample time to set up its own in-house union.

Mr Morley also alleged that the in-house union has yet to hold a general meeting with workers and or open a union office as required by law.

He said an employee in the human resources department is heading the in-house union, which is being fully embraced by management.

“The minister and registrar of trade unions have a fiduciary responsibility to ensure due diligence; that it has an office and that meetings are held with workers and that it has 50 plus one per cent of workers in the bargaining agent at the container port,” he stressed.

Mr Morley does not believe that the in-house union has the numbers.

“In talking to the workers we have well over 70 per cent (of support),” he said.

The Tribune contacted the Freeport Container Port for comment, and was told that the organisation has recognised a union.