CAUGHT IN THE MIDDLE of a labour dispute that almost brought Barbados to its proverbial knees, Minister of Labour Dr Esther Byer summed up the situation in a few words.
“Mistakes were made all around and continue to be made,” the physician turned politician told the SUNDAY SUN about 48 hours before the announcement that striking sanitation workers were returning to their jobs.
“I can’t say who made the first mistake,” she said, declining to point the finger at either the Barbados Investment and Development Corporation (BIDC) or the National Union of Public Workers and its supporters in the labour movement who were demanding that the Government agency reinstate the workers who were forced to retire.
“But the unions will argue that the first mistake was made in the retiring of these persons,” Byer added. “Was that a mistake? That is an issue which the courts must resolve.” (TB)
Please read the full story in today’s Sunday Sun, or in the eNATION edition.