Prime Minister Mia Amor Mottley is calling for unity among the country’s trade unions, emphasising the importance of a strong labour movement.
Speaking during the inaugural Patrick Frost Memorial Lecture at Courtney Blackman Grande Salle, Tom Adams Financial Centre, The City, on Monday night, she called for the easing of strained relationships and disputes and a period of renewal among the leadership of the Congress of Trade Unions and Staff Associations of Barbados (CTUSAB).
Mottley said that in the midst of the challenges facing the nation, the Barbadian public needed its unions to have a single purpose and action.
Task at hand
“In a world of slowing growth, climate shocks, and unfair finance, a divided labour movement is a luxury that Barbados cannot afford,” she said.
“The workers of this country need an institution that can bring organisations together, prepare a serious position and to pursue it with determination.
“They need to know that differences within the movement will not prevent cooperation and cooperation on matters affecting their livelihoods.”
Noting there have been strained relationships and disputes relating to representation and concerns about consultation, the Prime Minister said the task at hand was to get the congress back on a firm footing and renew its capacity to fulfil its national purpose.
“I can accept that Government has responsibilities in this relationship as well. I accept that consultation must also happen early enough to influence the decision. And I hear that from CTUSAB and its entreaties to us.
“A strong labour movement will often tell a Government things that it would rather not hear. I expect that and [former Prime Minister] Owen Arthur taught me that as a young minister to not ever get upset with the manner and tone because union has one currency – its voice and its action – and you do not get surprised by what you expect when people are fighting on behalf of others.
“An effective Social Partnership has to accommodate hard truths because the purpose of the engagement is to improve the quality of our decision-making as a country,” she added. The Prime Minister also urged the parties to place focus on reaching the young and uncertain workforce who stand among those most in need of the union’s voice and representation.
Good advice
“A young person entering employment is entitled to ask, what is this movement offering now? What is in it in here? They may know little of 1937. They equally know little of a disagreement in CTUSAB,” she said.
“They know that their contract is uncertain. They know that they need good advice. They know that the workplace is changing faster than they can understand. And we have to be useful to that person.
“And we have to tell them the story of how their rights were won because a generation that does not know the price of what it took to protect them will not know how to defend the rights that have been won.
“Patrick Frost’s own consideration of unity recognised the work involved in bringing organisations together. He examined questions of structure, consultation, and democratic agreement. And unity requires design as well as goodwill,” the Prime Minister added.
The lecture honoured the legacy of the late The Most Honourable Patrick Frost, who was known as an educator, a Lodge School honouree and long-serving leader of the Barbados Secondary Teachers’ Union. (JRN)