Based on evidence that emerged at the meeting, there were some procedural missteps and where there are missteps, confidence is undermined, dissatisfaction surfaces and the results you want to secure are thereby compromised. – Prime Minister Freundel Stuart, following a near four-hour meeting with representatives of the National Union of Public Workers and the Barbados Workers’ Union on his attempt to seek a resolution to a three-week-old industrial dispute with the National Conservation Commission, May 25.
I was amazed at how quickly and easily some of us were lured into the Government narrative that Prime Minister Freundel Stuart had somehow “intervened” in the protracted dispute between two trade unions and the state-run National Conservation Commission (NCC) over the contentious retrenchment issue.
Indeed, the Prime Minister’s decision, first, to meet with the unions, and secondly, to speak publicly on the controversy raised several issues about which there ought to be some clarification.
Given the provisions of the new Employment Rights Act, which have been noised abroad frequently in the past several weeks, if not months, that speak specifically about the availability of the Employment Rights Tribunal and who may trigger its involvement and how, it is not exactly clear how the Prime Minister became involved.
Certainly, as Minister of the Civil Service, he would have a duty and responsibility to look after the welfare of all public servants, but his stated desire to “seek a solution” to the dispute seemed to fly in the face of the law, which does not recognize or contemplate the involvement of any politician.
What really then was his role and why was the impression given that he had “intervened”?
“I convened this meeting,” he told the waiting media, “because I want the problem solved. I think it has dragged on too long and I want the problem resolved.”
But it would have been crystal clear to anyone reading the provisions of the law, especially to a legal luminary of the Prime Minister’s standing, how the matter should be dealt with.
Those of us who have long complained about the Prime Minister’s habitual silence and reactive approach to dealing with important national issues, would have stood up to take a closer look at the intent of this “intervention”.
Frustrated workers and their union representatives were on the verge, or so it seemed, of taking industrial action possibly going on strike from the following Monday morning.
After the meeting, some sections of the media and some union spokespersons, put it out that the Prime Minister had not only “intervened” but had referred the matter to the Employment Rights Tribunal.
Curious, I sought out the Prime Minister’s exact words on this particular point: “The matter before us is not one that admits of any delay, so as early as tomorrow, the Labour Department (my emphasis) will be referring this matter to the Employment Rights Tribunal, and based on what the tribunal is required to do, it should take the tribunal no time at all to determine who were the persons last in, and who should have been the persons first out”.
There, that seems clear enough.
Yet, members of the media and others owe it to their respective discerning publics to have treated them much better than feeding them the false narrative of the Prime Minister being the knight in shining armour who rode in on the eve of strike action in the public sector and pulled the situation back from the brink . . . again.
It is not to my certain knowledge that the Government either foisted such a narrative upon an unsuspecting public, or even encouraged it, but there is no denying that it created a favourable impression of the Prime Minister even if it were only among the most diehard of Dems.
But what worries me more is that despite the several attempts by maverick trade unionist and newspaper columnist Caswell Franklyn to highlight and educate the public on the specific provisions of the Employment Rights Act as they relate to the procedure for placing such matters before the tribunal, his colleagues in the labour movement persisted in the pursuit of a “process”, which the Prime Minister has now conceded was flawed.
“I understood very clearly what the concerns of the unions were,” the Prime Minister said. “I understand very clearly the basis on which the National Conservation Commission acted, but as a lawyer of some years’ experience, I know that no matter how well intentioned you are, what you are doing may be praiseworthy, but if the wrong procedure is followed, you are still wrong because the law is not only made up of substantive law, it is also made up of procedural or adjective law, and the procedures here have been flawed and have to be corrected.”
In the circumstances, it calls into question the determination by the unions not to invoke the provisions of the act at an early stage when it became clear that the employer was not following the “process”.
I’m not one for imputing improper motives to anybody, and won’t start now, but the unions are going to have to answer a lot of hard questions from their out of work, heavily indebted and hungry membership while the tribunal deliberates. Sometimes, the political narrative serves no one well.
• Albert Brandford is an independent political correspondent.
