The Tribune

By EARYEL BOWLEG 

Tribune Staff Reporter 

ebowleg@tribunemedia.net

AIRPORT Authority employees voted on Friday to determine whether the Bahamas Public Services Union (BPSU) or the newly formed Bahamas Public Sector and Health Professionals Union (BPSAHPU) would serve as their bargaining unit.

The results of the vote were unclear up to press time.

The BPSAHPU, which includes public servants and allied workers from quasi-governmental agencies, was officially certified in June 2023.

Latonya Symonette, the union’s president, said the union has 2,000 plus members.

Ms Symonette said the BPSAHPU was formed following the BPSU’s election last year, during which the incumbent president, Kimsley Ferguson, defeated challenges led by Alexander Burrows Jr and former Labour Director John Pinder.

Initially, the election results were not certified due to complaints about alleged irregularities. Public Services Minister Pia Glover-Rolle later certified the results, overturning the Registrar’s decision not to do so.

Ms Symonette, who had been a BPSU member for 18 years, cited issues with Mr Ferguson’s leadership, including his perceived alignment with management, poor representation, and a lack of responsiveness to members.

She mentioned lengthy delays in receiving salary increments and highlighted the lack of strategic planning for employees’ progress.

Kristna Dorsette, an Airport Authority employee, said he believes 65 to 80 percent of his colleagues will leave BPSU.

“I know they wasn’t satisfied with his leader- ship and whatnot,” he said. “Everybody say they can’t reach him. He don’t answer.”

Another worker, Antoinette Jackson, said she believes Mr Ferguson has led the membership “astray” and that her colleagues have had enough.

“He told us some things, what we was expecting. Come to find out, we didn’t get it,” she said.

“To me, I feel like he was working along with the management team because everything management told him to do, he used to do it and to see he got our money, and he never used to show no kind of attention towards us as a union, as a leader. He was a poor example as a leader. So that’s why we vote against him today.”

The Tribune could not reach Mr Ferguson up to press time.