Our reference is to the continuing impasse between trade union leadership and the hotel employers association.
For weeks now, leaders of the Bahamas Hotel Catering and Allied Workers Union – representing themselves as friends and mouth pieces for workers in the tourism industry – have been caught up in a cat-and-mouse game with the Bahamas Hotel Employers Association.
The public at large has grown weary of the shenanigans and tactics employed by trade union leadership. Even now, most Bahamians have a serious difficulty with some of the more outrageous demands being made by union leadership.
Having decided to pander to that minority of resentful workers, which has apparently hijacked the main tourist workers union, labour leaders now find that bringing the larger matter to closure, is proving extremely difficult. A part of the reason for this is simple. It is that most workers are simply not dissatisfied with the deal they are getting from the hotel owners. This explains, in part, why so few workers were prepared to vote to strike.
Revealed, however, is the other side of the same coin, which is that as structured, current labour rules give a decisive and organized minority, a tremendous amount of power on the labour front. This power easily translates into major political clout. Something is wrong when only 17 percent of the membership of the union votes to strike and that carries the day. What kind of a mandate is that? We call on the government to change the law so that a strike can only take place if it is voted for by fifty percent plus one of the unionﾴs membership. This is what democracy is all about.
The government now finds itself in the curious position of being both umpire and participant in this contest of will between workers and employers. As an employer and major player on the national tourism terrain, the government has a direct stake in a proper outcome to this industrial action. But even as we understand these dynamics and the purported justification for them, we are adamant in our conviction that trade union leaders have become over-mighty and that they are over-reaching in their demands.
We are very reliably informed by sources within the union, that there is a tremendous amount of tension in the leadership. Our information suggests that not only is union leadership divided within its own ranks, but that the gap between it and workers is vast; and growing.
As we have repeatedly warned, an ill-informed oligarchy is currently so large and in charge in the hotel unions, that no one seems prepared to listen to reason. At this juncture, then, as trade union leaders play fast and loose with the tourism industry, there is a pressing need for ordinary workers in the industry to speak up. They need to let their purported leaders know what they are currently whispering among themselves, which is that they do not agree with those leaders.
We know it for a fact that most workers in the tourism industry do not support the antics and shenanigans of their ﾓleaders.ﾔ Today, one of the sadder facts of life in The Bahamas, is that the hotel workers union – by virtue of the agency shop provision – has been able to reach a position of extraordinary power. Indeed, the power of the unions and their leadership has been great enough for them to make and break governments. This concentration of power in the hands of a relatively small group of labour leaders is not in the interest of anyone, but themselves.
In our considered judgement, the reiterated point is that the impasse between the Hotel Workers Union and the Hotel Employers Association has gone on for far too long, and should be brought to closure sooner rather than later. In the meantime, we stand by our story, that union leadership is internally incoherent and mired in bickering an acrimonious infighting.
And for sure, we challenge any and all to dispute the conclusion that most hotel workers are not supporting their out of touch union leadership. These people who are already earning a good living, are not impressed by leaders who are pushing them toward a precipice.
More bluntly, we do not believe that they are on strong grounds when they press their case for more of everything. While much of this is attributable to sheer ignorance, some is clearly due to malice and resentment on the part of people, who want to make a ﾓkilling rather than a livingﾔ. This is wrong.
Editor, The Bahama Journal
