When the lights went off yesterday morning, many Bahamians attributed the shut down to angry workers employed by the Bahamas Electricity Corporation. Some of these people suggest that the workers are being unreasonable. A serious side effect of the electricity shutdown relates to the fact that hospitals, clinics and other emergency services are always adversely affected when the electricity service is cut off.
While we know that there will never be an official acknowledgement by any worker concerning sabotage, we join members of the attentive public who hold the union leadership totally responsible for yesterday’s shut down. Electrical supplies are for any community so vital, that they should be treated as essential services. Like most Bahamians who have reached their wit’s end with bullying tactics by any number of over mighty union leaders, we argue that something must be done to curb their power.
In the execution of their duties, our Reporter and Photographer yesterday were threatened by BEC employees at their Tucker Road headquarters. They reported to our News Editors that they were approached by hostile Union members, chased off the property and threatened.
We take a dim view of this and are taking every action to ensure that those Union members are brought to justice. We will not allow anyone to intimidate or threaten members of our staff in carrying out their duties without protest. We call on the government to ensure that members of The Fourth Estate are protected in order to preserve our democracy and for the citizenry to be properly informed.
Apparently convinced that their negotiating tactics should be derived from what seems manuals of war, union leaders routinely view their antagonists in management, now the Media, as enemies. This belligerent mindset is totally counter-productive to the orderly and decent resolution of dispute. Instead of acting honourably at the negotiating table, these leaders ferment bitterness, distress and discord. This is intolerable in a day and age, where there are any number of laws to protect workers and all other Bahamians.
Our interest in this matter is that there be created an environment conducive to having Bahamians relate to each other decently and professionally. Nothing of real value is to be gained when parties to a negotiation are contemptuous of each other. In the current circumstances nobody wins when union leaders and management are locked in a spiral of nasty talk, ill will and discord. And for sure, nothing of any abiding worth is to be gained when immature union leaders grandstand and strut about, apparently oblivious to the greater national good.
By the same token, little of any real value is gained when management comes across as being disrespectful of Union executives. What we find particularly disturbing is the current drift towards anarchy throughout the Bahamas. The BEC imbroglio is but one sad chapter in a litany of confusions in this country. This is due, in part at least, to the current administration’s laisser faire attitude to any number of incipient conflicts. Instead of getting on top of them, the current administration reacts, thus any number of last minute appeals for calm and reason.
Quite frankly, this is not good enough. Take for example, the manner in which the government has handled the BEC matter. By allowing negotiations to drag on and on for what seems an inordinate amount of time, the government must be accorded some of the blame for the current mess.
In our view, talk should always be given bounds. Without these, talk invariably degenerates into babble and confusion. This is precisely what is happening now.
Electricity services are being shut down, the Press is threatened, commerce is being impeded, the citizenry is being held hostage, while national productivity is plummeting. This is all so wrong. Coming at a time when things are ‘tight’, and at a period when Bahamians should be pulling together, the BEC mess reveals that such is not the case. We believe that this situation can and should be settled.
This country can ill afford warfare at BEC. And most assuredly, the attentive public is watching to see what the government will do about the BEC matter. That same public is convinced that something drastic must be done to curb the power of union leaders, who apparently have no compunction in holding everyone hostage to their large demands, and their socially destructive tactics.
Editorial, The Bahama Journal
