“To ban, or not to ban: that is the question:
Whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The strikes and marches of outrageous unions
Or to take action against the right of assembly,
And by legislating end it?”
– with apologies to William Shakespeare, or whoever wrote Hamlet.
SUCH MAY HAVE BEEN the dilemma concentrating the mind of Dr Doolittle as he watched, over several weeks, the build-up of opposition by the National Union of Public Workers (NUPW) to the forced retirement of 13 employees of the Barbados Investment and Development Corporation.
After a march on July 6, in which its members were joined by the top brass and some members of the Barbados Workers’ Union, the NUPW stepped up the pressure, announcing plans for a national shutdown.
It was far too precipitous for Prime Minister Freundel Stuart, who in late May had referred to the union’s protests on behalf of Customs and Excise Department workers facing transfers to the new Barbados Revenue Authority as “noises” [which] have to be made.”
But by Monday, with his administration saying it was acting legally and would not budge until the matter was settled in court, Stuart launched a bitter, ad hominem attack on the union leadership.
It had broken with the “system of industrial relations which we have practiced ever since trade unions took shape and form”, he said. He referred to the NUPW leadership as “this new element” which had made it “very clear this is new trade unionism”.
Invoking a parable attributed to Jesus himself, Stuart likened the policies of the NUPW to new wine, because “the Good Book tells us you can’t accommodate new wine in old wine skins”. New wine skins would have to be found, and the prime minister knew how to procure them.
He would turn to Section 48 of the Constitution, which he noted, “makes very clear that Parliament can make laws for the peace, the order and the good governance of Barbados…It was there since 1966.”
In my view, referring to the parable about those wine skins was a cynical recasting of what scholars say it means. Jesus used it when he was asked why the disciples of John and the Pharisees were fasting more often than those of Jesus himself. After using a couple of other parables in answer, Jesus provided a third one:
“And no man putteth new wine into old bottles; else the new wine will burst the bottles, and be spilled, and the bottles shall perish. But new wine must be put into new bottles; and both are preserved. No man also having drunk old wine straightway desireth new: for he saith, the old is better.” – Luke 5:36-39, KJV.
According to Wikipedia, to some, the new wine symbolises Jesus’ “own, new way against the old way of the Pharisees and their scribes”, as “Jesus has brought something new, and the rituals and traditions of official Judaism cannot contain it.”
It led, says another commentator, to the New Covenant. So to describe anybody or any policy as new wine, it seems to me, should be a compliment. But the way it came across to me in reading Stuart’s remarks was that HIS new wine skins would mean less freedom for a trade union’s right to assemble and more controls over when and how they could strike or march.
After he first said it, I believe Stuart felt he had to improve his case a little. It might not be enough to just refer to the NUPW leaders as a “new element” dispensing with the past. And so he cast his prodigious intellect back into history, coming up with the assassination by a “fanatic armed with a gun” who had precipitated millions of deaths of innocent people in World War I.
But, perhaps sensing some bewilderment on the part of the journalists to whom he was venting, Stuart actually had to offer his own interpretation of that event in order to turn the actual gun used by the assassin into a metaphorical one, hint, him, being used by you-know-who.
Having done so, he could bring it home: “And wherever you have fanatics and they are armed with [metaphorical] guns, you are in trouble,” he said. But not with him around: “As the Prime Minister of Barbados, I have a duty to make sure that fanatics armed with guns don’t get too far with them.”
As I said, cynical to the core. If you haven’t had the chance to read the Constitution of Barbados lately (I know, it has its not-so-exciting moments), let me remind you that Section 48 simply states, that (at 48. 1.) “subject to the provision of this Constitution, Parliament may make laws for the peace, order and good government of Barbados.” It also says it can determine the privileges of its members, who cannot also be served by a lower court while it is sitting.
Our Prime Minister has taken this very general statement of the main reason for Parliament to exist and hinted he might use it as a weapon to control the fanatics armed with metaphorical guns in our trade unions before they can do any more damage.
Perhaps Stuart should re-acquaint himself with Section 21 before he pushes that agenda to much farther down the road.
“(21. 1.) Except with his own consent, no person shall be hindered in the enjoying of his freedom of assembly, and association, that is to say, his right to assembly freely and associate with other persons and in particular to form or belong to political parties or to form or belong to trade unions or other associations for the protection of his interests.”
If you do it to the trade unions, what’s to stop you from also doing it to the political parties (read “The Opposition”), Stuart?