The Tribune

By YOURI KEMP

Tribune Business Reporter

ykemp@tribunemedia.net

THE Bahamas Electrical Workers Union head said yesterday it is a “flat out lie” that Bahamas Power & Light (BPL) line staff make an average of $58,000 a year

Kyle Wilson, the Bahamas Electrical Workers Union’s (BEWU) president, told Tribune Business the information put out by BPL’s management on what the company’s line staff makes a year is nowhere near the amount stated.

 The state owned energy supplier in a statement to the media last month said the average cash compensation of line staff averaged $58,000 in addition to 77 non-executive staff earning more than $100,000 a year in both salary and overtime.

Mr Wilson said in response: “This is a flat out lie. I rebuke that and send that back to the pits of hell. They’re talking about managers and executives.

 “How much money does (CEO Whitney) Mr Heastie make? Mr Heastie’s salary could pay all of our salaries out here with change left over, but no one is talking about that. These people are failed leaders.

 “Y’all are letting these bad people who are leading BPL fool y’all into believing that these people who barely trying to put bread on the table are making that kind of money.”

Mr Wilson has been repeatedly calling for an end to the stalemate between his union and  BPL’s management team over an expired contract for BPL employees, which lapsed over four years ago.

The negotiations are stuck at the present moment, with BEWU wanting guarantees for salary increases for line staff along with better working conditions.

Mr Wilson said: “They have $25m for a battery, but refuse to buy a computer for you to work at home to save your life. They want you to take COVID home and kill your family so they could bring in some foreigners and pay them while Bahamians are on sick beds on ventilator.”

 There is also the matter of the union’s insurance documentation being held by BPL’s management, to which Mr Wilson questioned BPL executives’ sincerity on the integrity of the union’s insurance and benefits programme.

“They refuse to provide the union and its legal counsel with the relevant information and documents concerning employee benefits, mainly insurance coverage, despite many requests on a mandate from the courts. The question is, what are you hiding,” Mr Wilson asked.

“Despite many requests from the union and the Courts they refuse to hand us documents, my question again, what are you hiding?

“Yet they will hoodwink the media and the public with their pseudo economics, and claims to be negotiating in good faith while attempting to paint the hard working professional men and women who are trying to keep this company afloat, suffering from inflation and the high rising cost of living as greedy, for $50 extra on your salary.”

Mr Wilson said the “main culprits” for this impasse with BPL lies with its chairman, Dr Donovan Moxey, chief executive officer, Whitney Heastie and the company’s public relations director, Quincy Parker, the trio to whom he referred as “the legion of doom”.

“They are reckless, cold, uncaring and show no empathy to the needs of the employees. In particular, members believe that the behaviour of chairman Dr Donovan Moxey as pompous and arrogant towards the union and its members,”  Mr Wilson claimed.

As a result of all of these unsolved issues coupled with a soured relationship with BPL executives, Mr Wilson called on Prime Minister Dr Hubert Minnis to step in and bring resolution to the matter. Mr Wilson also said that he has told his members from Abaco to Inagua to continue to “stand in solidarity”.

“The members are in great need of your immediate and direct intervention as we are still in harm’s way, both economically and health wise. We have had enough and we are prepared to not return to work until we get our contract or until our lives are taken seriously and the proper measures put in place concerning this COVID-19. We will not relent,” Mr Wilson said.