The Tribune

By YOURI KEMP

Tribune Business Reporter

ykemp@tribunemedia.net

Middle managers at the Water & Sewerage Corporation yesterday signed a three-year, $2.3m industrial agreement with the state-owned utility that will last until mid-2025.

This is the first industrial deal for the Water and Sewerage Management Union (WSMU) and its members in a decade, the last having expired in June 2013, will be in effect from July 1, 2022, to June 30, 2025.

Montgomery Miller, the union's president, said: “Through the signing of this 2022 to 2025 industrial agreement, we have sought to address issues such as performance management by aligning the performance assessment of the individual manager with that of the corporation as a whole.

“Further, we have ensured equity across the Water & Sewerage Corporation such that employees and managers alike are duly incentivised and compensated in accordance with their objectively-measured performance. For the long term sustainability of the Water & Sewerage Corporation, we have agreed to a group medical insurance premium cost-sharing proposal for new employees to ensure the ongoing provision of affordable medical insurance for all of our members.”

Robert Deal, the Water & Sewerage Corporation's general manager, said the industrial agreement’s value is in the “range of about $2.3m, which is shared over all of the existing middle managers and also a series of benefits payments that will also be due to managers who have retired from the corporation during this period as well".

Mr Deal added: “That’s the total figure. It is all-inclusive, including the amount required moving forward.” He added that a presentation on the Water & Sewerage Corporation's business plan was made to the Davis Cabinet in July, but there are further documents that need to be provided to policymakers. The state-owned enterprise expects that the plan will be completed “over the next few months”.

Alfred Sears, minister for public works and utilities, said yesterday marked the first time in well over a decade since both Water & Sewerage Corporation unions, the management union as well as the Bahamas Utility, Services and Allied Workers Union (BUSAWU) that represents line staff, both have signed industrial agreements.

Meanwhile, Mr Sears, said of Bahamas Power & Light (BPL) that “there has been a forensic investigation and, in due course, that investigation will be released".