IN AN UNPRECEDENTED MOVE, the Barbados Workers’ Union (BWU) banned local media house Barbados Today from covering the union’s 75th annual delegates’ conference at Solidarity House last Saturday.
The two organisations have become embroiled in a dispute over an article the media house carried last week in which Unity Workers Union (UWU) general secretary Caswell Franklyn accused the BWU of breaching the Employment Rights Act by suggesting that 13 employees take voluntary separation packages.
“It is with some regret that in the past couple days, we have observed a number of pitiful attempts to taint the plans we have for this conference, to taint our moments of intro-flection as a labour family by one media house,” a disgruntled BWU general secretary Toni Moore said during her closing remarks at the opening ceremony.
‘Not welcome’
“And so yes, you may have heard that in Barbados, today, the BWU has sent a signal to that media house that it was not welcome at our opening conference,” she added.
Moore said that she felt the article was “irresponsible journalism” that was aimed at benefiting from “deceit and sensationalism”.
According to an editor’s note from that same media house, an email sent by senior assistant general secretary Orlando “Gabby” Scott read: “I have been instructed by the executive council of the Barbados Workers’ Union that your news service will not be welcome to attend the Barbados Workers’ Union’s 75th annual delegates’ conference which will be held on Saturday, August 27, 2016 and Saturday, September 3, 2016.”
The online publication maintained it was “satisfied that the BWU was able to fully vent its position” and could “therefore see no just cause for the union’s position”, but Moore took a dim view of Franklyn and the publication’s actions.
“. . . Attempts cannot be made to undermine another organisation that is set on the same course as that union. All unions, whether you’re the Barbados Workers’ Union, the National Union of Public Workers, the BSTU, the BUT, CTUSAB, all unions should have in mind the same objective,” she said. (AD)
