THE BARBADOS EMPLOYERS’ Confederation (BEC) has joined with the Congress of Trade Unions and Staff Associations (CTUSAB) in its call for a full meeting of the Social Partnership.
The announcement came today from BEC president Ian Gooding-Edghill during the launch of the organization’s week of activities.
“We believe that the disregard of the Social Partnership [and] provisions of the social protocol should be brought to the fore. We cannot proclaim to the world that we have a social partnership agreement, travel the globe to promote it, and the government as the model employer continues to ignore and fails to adhere to the requirements of the protocol,” he said.
Gooding-Edghill also announced that the BEC would not support the proposed extension of Protocol VI of the Social Partnership, as a result of government’s handling of its ongoing retrenchment exercise.
He said despite repeated requests for meetings to discuss or be updated on government’s redundancy programmes, and plans to improve the economic prospects for the country, the BEC had “been met sometimes with a stony, even contemptuous silence.”
Signed in 2011, the initial Social Partnership protocol expired on March 31, 2014. (LW)
