Bahamas Christian Council has stepped into the ongoing head butting between the government and hundreds of non-managerial staff at the Bahamas Electricity Corporation in another attempt to put a festering industrial issue to rest.
According to President of the Bahamas Electrical Workers Union (BEWU) Dennis Williams, workers met with members of the Christian Council on Saturday, a move he supported.
“If this did not happen it was going to be an all-out war between the union and the Minister of Labour. If he draws a line [we would answer the challenge],” Mr. Williams said.
“…There is an infinite amount of things that the union can do to bring pressure on the government to resolve this matterﾅwe would wish that they would do so and stop trying to bully us.”
BEC workers involved in last weekﾒs “illegal and unwarranted” strike followed the Councilﾒs advice and returned to work on Monday.
When he appeared on the Love 97 programme “Jones and Company” on Sunday Labour Minister Shane Gibson warned that the line had been drawn.
The threat came just days after the government announced that it had begun the process of seeking a court order to force those BEC workers back to work who had participated in the strike.
The Supreme Court ordered the union not to call any strike or urge union members to leave their employment until the Bahamas Industrial Tribunal has resolved the dispute.
The BEWU claims that line staff members at the government owned corporation are owed back pay after reportedly working in excess of the required 40-hour work week for more than two years.
But according to Minister Gibson, at the time the workweek was reduced to 40 hours in 2003, government corporation employees were already working 40 hours or fewer a week.
However, he said these employees started lobbying to have an additional half hour reduction despite already being in compliance with the law.
The change was eventually approved for the Bahamas Telecommunications Company (BTC) as well as the Water and Sewerage Corporation (WSC). The approval for BEC eventually happened after the union signed an industrial contract in 2004.
The minister explained that as such management had no obligation to give those workers any additional money because they were already where they ought to have been.
The BEWU claims its members are owed $9 million in back pay.
But Full Gospel Baptist Bishop Neil Ellis, who was appointed arbitrator in the matter, also believes that the BEC workers are not entitled to anything legally.
He has, however, proposed that 920 BEWU members be paid some $1.234 million in back pay.
Mr. Williams has meantime stressed that while BEC workers have returned to work, this does not mean that the union cannot stage a strike on any one of its other trade disputes.
“We have about 37 matters and four new trade disputes and if we wish to we could take action based on theseﾅThe Supreme Court injunction only talks about a strike for a trade dispute. It does not mean that we cannot work according to the rules or diminish productivity,” he said.
“This also cannot hold workers hostage to work overtime… we will not allow anyone to intimate us without any recourse.”
The union president said what he found ironic is that Minister Gibson, a former trade union leader, was prepared to tear down the town a few years ago when the government did not offer him fair compensation.
“The union is very disappointed that the minister is attempting to [use] hard line tactics,” Mr. Williams said.
“We would just like him to know that we are not illegal immigrants and if he wishes to try to bully us we have some horns too.”
By: Macushla N. Pinder, The Bahama Journal
