The Tribune

By SANCHESKA BROWN

Tribune Staff Reporter

sbrown@tribunemedia.net

BAHAMAS Public Service Union President John Pinder yesterday vowed to protest with his members everyday in Rawson Square until the government addresses the group’s key concerns, including “union busting” by the commissioner of police and the “mould and rat infested” General Post Office.

He spoke with reporters during a demonstration outside Cabinet with employees from the post office on East Hill Street. Mr Pinder said it is a disgrace that the government moved all other agencies out of the “condemned” building, but has yet to relocate the post office staff.

His said his members are forced to work in a mould infested building with rats and termites despite many promises from the government to move them into empty space at the Town Centre Mall.

“For years we have been trying to get out of that building, they moved all the major agencies but they left the post office there and the post office is the only revenue generating department in that building,” Mr Pinder said, in front of a group of disgruntled employees who were waving placards.

“The third largest revenue generated for the country comes through the post office but these people are not being treated fairly.

“They don’t know when they will get out that building. The rats are crawling, the building is falling and full of mould but they don’t want to spend the money on us. So we will be out here every day until we get some resolution.”

Mr Pinder also accused Commissioner of Police Ellison Greenslade of intentionally putting members of the Police Staff Association (PSA) “in the front line” in order to stop the group, which is not a union, from having a voice.

“The practice has been that the PSA would be given an office and they would be allowed to carry out their role as it relates to the persons in the membership. He has dismantled that by putting the chairman and the other officers out in stations to work,” Mr Pinder claimed.

“We think that is intimidating and demoralising and a union busting tactic on behalf of the commissioner of police and while we cannot give him a directive, we know the minister of national security could ask him to let them men function as normal and not to dismantle the PSA.”

Last year, executives of the PSA in New Providence and Grand Bahama were transferred to various police stations in a move that PSA Chairman Dwight Smith characterised as a “dismantling of the PSA”.

Mr Smith told The Tribune at the time that members of the PSA were abruptly reassigned without warning due to a recent rise in crime.

“The commissioner indicated to me that crime is high and the force needed all hands on deck. That included the officers in the PSA. I respected his ruling,” Mr Smith said.