Years of verbal sparring between Morton Salt Company officials and executives of the Bahamas Industrial Manufacturers & Allied Workers Union (BIMAWU) resulted in that company’s workers voting on Thursday to strike.
It was a move company officials said caught them by surprise.
During a telephone interview with the Bahama Journal from the Magistrate’s Court in Inagua, Trade Union Congress (TUC) President Obie Ferguson indicated that the decision to take a strike vote followed a meeting with a large number of union members Wednesday evening.
According to Mr. Ferguson, it was expected that at the close of the polls, anywhere from 80 to 90 percent (if not 100 percent) of Morton Salt line staff would have cast their ballots in favour of the decision to move ahead with a strike.
He claimed late on Thursday that 99 percent of those who voted, voted to strike.
Executive Director of the TUC, Thomas Bastian was also present to oversee the voting process.
Officials of the Morton Salt Company and the union have been locking horns since 2002 over what Mr. Ferguson called the company’s failure to comply with a number of terms outlined in its industrial agreement with the union.
According to Mr. Ferguson, after fighting verbally for years without any resolution, it is now time for the union to take action.
“As far back as 2002, they negotiated an agreement which indicated that they were entitled to an increase [in salary],” charged Mr. Ferguson, who has also served as mediator and attorney for the union in the ongoing dispute.
“The workers have also been mistreated. Things like compassionate days where they are entitled to receive five days have been reduced to three, the correct vacation pay pursuant with the Employment Act and generally the respectability of the officers and the general terms of the agreement [are also concerns].”
Union officials also claimed that the company hired 50 part-time workers for the purposes of undermining the effectiveness of the bargaining unit and to frustrate the lawful industrial action plan by the union.
“Once the strike vote is taken and certified by the Ministry, it is simply a question of timing as to when the action will be taken,” Mr. Ferguson said earlier in the day.
“But we are now legalizing our actions in the furtherance of this trade dispute-A date and a time will be set when the maximum result can be achieved by the union and there will be a total work stoppage.”
Before the results came in, Managing Director of Morton Bahamas Limited Glenn Bannister said the strike vote left company officials “terribly surprised and confounded”.
“We signed an industrial agreement with the union and all of the benefits – 100 percent – that we agreed to accept have been given to employees. There are no matters outstanding that we know of that require a strike or strike vote,” Mr. Bannister told the Journal.
“Up to now, we have been working with the union. If there were any concerns, they would send us something that needed to be corrected. We have been having very good relations, so I am very surprised about what we are hearing.”
Mr. Bannister said the company’s officials at the head office in Chicago, Illinois have already been notified about the strike vote
Morton Salt Bahamas is the main employer in Inagua. Consequently mass industrial action at the Inagua plant could cripple the company, bringing its day-to-day operations to a virtual standstill.
But according to Mr. Bannister, the company will do what it has to, to keep operations going.
“We would continue to harvest and load salt and the employees who are here would come to work because there are no reasons at all for employees to strike and I think they know and understand this,” Mr. Bannister added.
Mr. Ferguson, meanwhile, said industrial action is always a last resort and the union is hoping that all outstanding issues will be amicably resolved to begin a new chapter in the “good relations at Morton Salt”.
By: Macushla N. Pinder, The Bahama Journal
