BEWU president Dennis Williams told The Guardian Tuesday that his organisation had “exhausted” all negotiations with management and will go to the labour board.
“We will not be negotiating with the managers of BEC any more because of their refusal to negotiate in good faith. We will take the matter to the labour board and to the relevant government authorities higher than them. We have exhausted our negotiations with management,” Mr. Williams said.
“The reason for us taking the matter to the labour board is to have the matter conciliated and resolved. If the matter is not resolved it may lead to a strike vote. But it is not our intention to seek a strike vote, but if the matter is not resolved in a certain amount of time it may lead to a strike vote.”
Late last month, Mr. Williams warned that the union might resort to strike action if the corporation continued to use “hard-line tactics and a take it or leave it position.”
At that time, he disclosed that a trade dispute had been filed with the Department of Labour and said his union planned to follow the right procedure up to the maximum level, which included lawful industrial action, strike votes and a lawful strike.
BEWU and its consultants have been negotiating with BEC for more than four months for a new industrial agreement, but to no avail. He said after receiving the corporation’s offer on Oct. 15, “it was evident that BEC was not prepared to negotiate in good faith as it was not offering anything tangible that would benefit any employee at BEC, but had sought to present terms and conditions that would be detrimental to all workers in the bargaining unit.”
Mr. Williams told the Guardian that there were several contentious issues hindering the negotiation process. He pointed to a merit pay scheme the corporation was attempting to include in the agreement.
“Management is trying to formulate a programme that they call a high performance, appraisal and merit pay system where they are trying to equate a pay increase to work output. Right now unilaterally they are trying to push a merit pay system down the members’ throat and right now we find that totally unacceptable,” Mr. Williams said.
When contacted last week, however, Minister of Labour and Immigration Vincent Peet told The Guardian that the merit system as part of the contract negotiations with the unions was a very important aspect of making the employees more reliable, more responsible for their performance.
“That is the way forward for the entire world when it comes to negotiating contracts. Gone are the days when you just give across-the-board increases without regard to the performance of the employees. So it helps the employees, the union and the business because it is really productivity-based. Most unions are now using them as a tool for their negotiations,” Mr. Peet said.
He said he had been encouraging unions and employers to use merit pay as a tool.
But, he said there will always be one or two unions that would have difficulty with this. However, he said several organisations had decided to use the system and negotiations in this regard had been completed. Among them were
Water and Sewerage, Bacardi, and Morton Salt.
But, according to Mr. Williams, several things needed to be established before such an act could take place.
He called for the establishment of:
* A national committee to formulate policies and procedure for merit pay systems in The Bahamas.
* A national productivity and corporate efficiency regulatory body to be instituted to benchmark worker productivity, executive productivity and general corporate efficiency before any merit pay could be instituted in the Bahamian public sector.
“The reason these things must be done before implementation of the high performance and merit pay system is because workers, managers and executives must be equally accountable and responsible for their actions in the public sector,” Mr. Williams said.
Another contentious issue, said Mr. Williams, was the “inadequate pension plan” BEC offered.
“We need salary increases at BEC because you have over 45 per cent of the staff at BEC at their maximum bar. If they don’t get a union increase their salary remains frozen. So that is another factor that BEC should give a moderate salary increase,” Mr. Williams said.
By Keva Lightbourne, The Nassau Guardian
