Public Managers Union Winston Moss, who represents approximately 75 middle managers at the government entity, told the Guardian Monday, that although strike action may be the organisation’s last resort, the union will not hesitate to make such a move if the issue of promotions and salary anomalies are left hanging.
“We have just had enough of the style of leadership at the National Insurance Board. We have sat back, exercised all the patience we know how to do. We have been to the table and talked about things intelligently but obviously intelligent reasoning does not cause things to happen in our country, which is unfortunate,” Mr. Moss said.
“From where I sit and looking at the other unions and how the Ministry of Labour and Immigration Minister Vincent Peet have been resolving a lot of issues, it looks like the only way we are going to get ours is to bring the issues to the forefront.
“As a managers union we are hoping that we do not have to go there, but if we have to then we will. But, a strike threat will be the very last resort and hopefully we won’t get to that,” he said.
According to Mr. Moss, the union for the past two to five years has been trying to get management to change the policy on its promotion exercise, but it is NIB’s Director, Lennox McCartney, position that promotions should only occur where vacancies exist and he alone decides if vacancy exist. Mr. Moss said all of this takes place in the absence of a proper organisational structure or any knowledge of the manpower needs of the organisation.
He pointed to an incident where four persons were asked to act in Deputy Accountant positions for a period of time, and at the end of it only one person was confirmed, and the other three were asked to apply for the position because it was going to be advertised.
Mr. Moss said the union thought that to be unfair, as the department chief had recommended that all four persons be confirmed in their positions. They all are at the assistant accountant level and were acting as deputy accountants.
According to the contract, if a person is placed in an acting position for 12 months then he/she should be confirmed in that position.
Mr. Moss accused Mr. McCartney of operating as a “one man band and not actually taking into consideration recommendations from department heads.”
He said Mr. McCartney brought on the very rigid policy about college degrees for certain positions. Mr. Moss said the union supports that to the extent where if you are coming into National Insurance and you needed to qualify for a position then those qualifications have to be adhered to.
“If an individual was in National Insurance doing the job, seemed to be by the department head able to function, then why not confirm that employee in the position. The application says a degree or equivalent, and we always had the understanding that equivalent was the fact that you can do the job, you have been doing it and you have the experience. But that does not happen now,” Mr. Moss said.
When contacted, Mr. McCartney said: “All of our actions in the past with regards to promotions are done in accordance with our agreements and contract so they are quite legitimate.”
Mr. McCartney said promotions are the prerogative of management. “What we have been doing in the past, we have only been promoting when there is a need for someone in a position within the organisation. We have not carried out promotion exercises where persons are promoted en masse.”
Mr. Moss said the union also made an appeal to Government to have his members salary scales adjusted to be comparable to those in other corporations like Bahamas Electricity Corporation, the Bahamas Telecommunications Company and the Water and Sewerage Corporation.
Mr. Moss said his members are lagging some 20-40 per cent behind in pay.
“We don’t feel it is fair where we have a CPA accountant over at National Insurance doing accounting with millions of dollars and you have persons at BEC and Batelco doing basically the same type of work and their salaries are $10,000, $15,000 and $20,000 in some cases higher. We think that is totally unfair,” he said.
But, Mr. McCartney said pay received is done in accordance with the agreement with Public Managers Union.
“The time has not expired for us to have this report completed. We intend to have it completed on time and it would be made available to them. Our agreement states that it has to be done by July 26 and we are on track to having it done by the time,” Mr. McCartney said.
In the meantime, Mr. Moss said the middle managers have had “enough.”
By Keva Lightbourne, The Nassau Guardian
