The Tribune

BY ANNELIA NIXON

TRIBUNE Business Reporter

anixon@tribunemedia.net

THE TRADES Union Congress (TUC) president yesterday dismissed a veteran unionist’s call for his resignation, branding his critic “insignificant” and asserting he has no standing to make such arguments as he is not a fully paid-up Bahamas General Workers Union (BGWU) member.

Obie Ferguson KC hit back at Dave Beckford, acting BGWU president, following the Supreme Court ruling that found for the latter and his fellow council members and inflicted a total defeat on late union president, Linda Sands, and Natania Johnson, the secretary-general, who the TUC chief had represented legally in the court battle.

“Mr Beckford is insignificant,” Mr Ferguson, rejecting his criticism and challenging him to publicly produce the court documents concerning the BGWU dispute. He said Mr Beckford had failed to tell Bahamians that the court had ordered an election within the union.

“The court ordered him to have an election,” Mr Ferguson said. “Did he tell you that? Did he tell you that in about 14 days or thereabouts there will be an election? No, he didn’t tell that to you.”

Acting justice Raynard Rigby KC, in his July 29, 2026, verdict, had called on members of the Bahamas General Workers Union’s (BGWU) executive council to “move quickly” in setting dates for the nomination and election of new officers following his verdict on a dispute that splintered its leadership into two rival factions. However, he gave no specific dates or timeline for when this was to take place.

Mr Beckford yesterday told Tribune Business that, while no final dates have been announced, nominations for new officers will likely be set for the final week in August with elections held in either the first or second week of September 2026.

Mr Ferguson, meanwhile, also questioned Mr Beckford’s standing within the union, alleging that he had not paid union dues for around three years. “He is not a financial member of that union,” Mr Ferguson said. “We discovered that for the last three years he hasn’t paid dues to the union.”

He challenged Mr Beckford to provide evidence of his membership status and the court’s ruling. “You ever seen when they catch a fish? When they catch a fish and put it in the dinghy, the fish is all over the place trying to find life, because he’s going to die,” Mr Ferguson said, appearing to compare Beckford’s position to that of someone fighting to retain his standing.

Mr Beckford, giving evidence at the Supreme Court trial on the leadership dispute, “confirmed that he did not pay dues regularly and he could not remember the last time he paid dues”.

“He in fact stated that ’he haven't paid in a while, you know,” acting justice Rigby wrote. “He confirmed that he ‘haven't paid in 2026’ and suggested that ‘I would have paid some dues in 2025’. He further stated when pressed under cross examination that ‘I think it was about six months somewhere around...as I can recall, ... I paid to Brian Smith the treasurer’.”

Mr Beckford later “suggested that he was likely in arrears for 12 weeks before his purported dismissal by the president of the union. He also confirmed that when he received the termination letter of December 17, 2024, he did not challenge it and did not provide to the president any evidence that he was current with his dues”.

As a result, Mr Ferguson had argued that Mr Beckford could not be elected as the union’s then-vice president because he was not in good standing and in arrears on his dues.

However, acting justice Rigby disagreed and found that Mr Ferguson and his clients had “failed to discharge the burden on them to show that Dave Beckford and Brain Smith were non-financial members as of December 17, 2024”.