The Tribune

By NATARIO McKENZIE

Tribune Business Reporter

nmckenzie@tribunemedia.net

A Cabinet minister yesterday said resolving the Morton Salt dispute is “a top priority for the sake of all Inagua residents” with the warring parties due to meet tomorrow.

Dion Foulkes, minister of labour, said the company’s management and line-staff union representing more than 100 workers will meet in their latest bid to conclude an industrial agreement acceptable to both parties.

Speaking outside Cabinet, Mr Foulkes said: “I have been in discussion with both the management at Morton Salt and the union; both Mr Obie Ferguson, who is the lead negotiator for the union, and Mr Scott Nixon, who represents the management down in Inagua. We have agreed to have a meeting this coming Thursday.

“We are very hopeful we can bring some resolution to the outstanding issues at Morton. Most of them revolve around economic issues in the contract. Morton Salt is the largest employer next to the government on Inagua.

“We see it as a top priority for the government to get that settled for the sake of all the residents and the viability of Inagua in terms of full employment. We are very hopeful that on Thursday we can make some progress, if not resolve all of the issues at Morton Salt.”

The dispute between Morton Bahamas and the Bahamas Industrial, Manufacturers & Allied Workers Union (BIMAWU) escalated in late June after the company, in a letter exposing its growing exasperation and frustration over the two sides’ “impasse”, accused the line staff union of failing to negotiate “in good faith” and disrupting “the economic viability” of its Bahamian operations.

Morton Salt executive, Christopher Getaz, told Jennifer Brown, the BIMAWU president, that her members will be locked out of its facilities from July 3 unless the company received a reply indicating the two sides can reach a “happy medium” over a new industrial agreement.

Noting the union’s possession of a strike certificate, and previous threats of industrial action, Mr Getaz also blamed reduced productivity and work slowdowns on the BIMAWU’s influence, and suggested that the “lock-out” was required to redress the negotiating balance.

These actions, he alleged, included “an operating deficit in all harvest levels” on a daily, weekly, monthly and year-to-date basis to February 22, 2019; “significantly lower boat loading rates” in February and March; and a “reduction to lowest loading rates”, which caused “significant costs and placed the company at risk of missing the contract for de-icing salt” around early March.

“The foregoing requires the company to consider whether, in the declared industrial action climate, it is necessary for the company to lock employees out of the plant in furtherance of the company’s bargaining objectives in negotiations for a new industrial agreement,” Mr Getaz told the union.

“We invite a response from you within the next 15 days with a view to arriving at a happy medium between the parties. Failing such a response, or the arrival to a happy medium between the parties, the company intends to proceed with its lock-out at the expiry of 15 days from the fate of this letter.”

Mr Getaz added that the company’s June 13 offer to the union was its “best and final” position, and said: “The company is not in a position to make further offers.”

The “lock-out” was averted after intervention by the Government. In response, the union’s Ms Brown had told this newspaper that Inagua would become “a ghost town” should Morton Salt follow through with its threat. She added that while the BIMAWU wanted an industrial deal it would “not sign for stupidness”.

Obie Ferguson, the Trades Union Congress (TUC) president, and attorney and chief negotiator for the BIMAWU, previously argued that Morton Salt’s proposal was a “deficit industrial agreement” and called for salary increases that matched the inflation rate.

Explaining what he meant, the TUC chief said the base salary increases offered to workers over the proposed industrial agreement’s three-year term - 1.5 percent for each of the first two years, and 1.9 percent for the final year - were lower than the current rate of inflation and cost of living increases, which have both been impacted by last year’s VAT rate hike.

And, Mr Ferguson argued, the increase in staff contributions to their health insurance coverage would more than offset the positive effect from salary increases.