Barbados Today

Whatever confidence that today’s meeting of the Social Partnership might have brought the labour movement and Government closer to a consensus on the controversial National Social Responsibility Levy (NSRL) was eroded in a flash when Prime Minister Freundel Stuart delivered his closing remarks, according to General Secretary of the Barbados Workers’ Union (BWU) Toni Moore.

Trade unions and private sector associations held a marathon meeting with Government at the Hilton Barbados Resort, during which the NSRL, which increased from two per cent to ten per cent as of July 1, featured prominently.

It was at the end of the eight hour robust exchange of ideas that Stuart, who chaired the televised meeting, repeated an earlier position that the unions were reneging on a promise made at a meeting on June 23 to give Government until September 30 to assess the success of the NSRL.

The leaders of the island’s four major trade unions – the Barbados Workers’ Union (BUT), the National Union of Public Workers (NUPW), the Barbados Union of Teachers (BUT), the Barbados Secondary Teachers’ Union (BSTU) – had taken umbrage to the statement when it was first made by Stuart at a Democratic Labour Party (DLP) luncheon on July 23.

Moore today said the Prime Minister “was abusing the privilege of the last speaker with an intent to misrepresent facts”.

The BWU general secretary asserted that Stuart was fully cognizant that as a last speaker, no one would be able to correct the record, yet proceeded to “continue the same callous approach to the concern of the workers, in the full view of public.

“This represented an abuse of privilege where being the last spokesperson, the Prime Minister used the opportunity to raise issues that were not even mentioned in meeting, namely his discussion with the unions and misrepresented a number of things. We have to make it plain that his statement that there is an agreement and a commitment of the unions to giving the NSRL a chance to work for a quarter, is totally untrue. The unions never made such an agreement,” said Moore, whose recollection of the meeting in question was supported by President of the Barbados Secondary Teachers’ Union Mary Redman.

Moore stated in no uncertain terms that the tone and tenor of Stuart’s remarks did not auger well for future negotiations, and said the unions would meet to determine the appropriate response.

“It is unfortunate that a live broadcast was used to purport what the public may perceive to be a truth because it came at the end without any chance to rebut. And if coming at the end of today’s exchanges that forms part of the conclusion, it signals to us the kind of approach that will be adopted in addressing a number of other issues and the trade unions therefore will have to reflect on the last half an hour of exaltation that we had to endure along with the rest of Barbados,” Moore said, pointing out that prior to Stuart’s comments there was optimism as a result of a decision to move up discussions on the NSRL from October to later this month.

However, the BWU leader would not state whether or not the labour movement would resume actions to force the administration to accede to their demands for 50 per cent reduction in the NSRL.

“We are going to meet but we are not going to respond in any knee-jerk manner. We will discuss and analyze everything comprehensively and we will be informing our publics as necessary. However, we are confident that the public has received a lot more information that was not available before and we too as trade unions have received a lot more information than we had before. A number of our questions still were not addressed but hopefully the Government better understands what we are asking,” she explained.