WERE IT UP TO SIR ROY TROTMAN the Barbados Workers’ Union (BWU) would have called a general strike and shut down the country over Government’s mishandling of the lay-offs of 3 500 civil servants and statutory corporation employees.
The veteran union boss told journalists yesterday that it had taken all the restraint he could muster not to call a general strike over Government departments and boards’ bungling and “mindless” decisions in the dismissal of hundreds of workers over the past five weeks.
Sir Roy revealed yesterday in a quickly-summoned Press conference at Solidarity House, the BWU’s headquarters, that he had chosen to take the high road to protect the country’s stability for the sake of the struggling tourism industry.
But he revealed that bosses in the public and private sector were taking advantage of the union’s position to take the high road on some matters.
“There are people who know that you want to do the right thing . . . who are becoming most difficult and obnoxious in [the] private sector and public sector and it takes an awful lot of restraint at this time to put up with some of the nonsense publicly and privately that we are faced with.”
