Protesting what it calls the Airport Authority’s unfair dismissal of a security officer and union shop steward, thousands of Bahamas Public Services Union members have been placed on red alert to fight another major battle.
The union has not ruled out a strike, according to BPSU president John Pinder. Such an industrial action would seriously cripple airport operations.
According to Mr. Pinder, BPSU shop steward Jackie Jackson was recently dismissed from her job as a security officer at the Nassau International Airport, a move he branded as union busting.
“Based on what is happening, we think that Mrs. Jackson has been fired because of her relationship with the union, and we will not allow this to happen,” the union leader said. “This is a no-no.”
He cited the Industrial Relations Act which states that an employee cannot be fired because of his or her involvement with a union.
But Airport Authority’s Acting General Manager Idris Reid has a different view.
Speaking with the Bahama Journal Tuesday, Mr. Reid maintained that Mrs. Jackson was fired last Friday “for cause and for infractions of the rules of the Airport Authority. He however refused to elaborate publicly on what those infractions entailed.
“I wish not to deal with this matter in this press, but on the other plane where Mr. Pinder wishes to do so,” he said.
Responding to the union’s plans to strike, Mr. Reid simply said the union is free to take whatever action it wishes, provided it is lawful. However, he was quick to point out that the Authority has not recognized the BSPU has its employees bargaining agent “at all.”
“The Airport Authority security department has been deemed an essential service,” he said. “And under the law they cannot take strike action. These people hold the power of police officers and the conditions are the same.”
The BPSU is already in the process of filing a trade dispute against the Airport Authority.
This latest incident comes only a few months after the Airport Authority reportedly suspended Mrs. Jackson following a three-hour work stoppage at NIA. The three-hour strike came as a direct result of an ongoing dispute with the Authority over unpaid salary anomalies.
As shop steward, Mrs. Jackson was instructed to update her colleagues on the union’s position at the time, a move that resulted in the security officer being suspended for three days after leaving her station unattended.
Mr. Pinder however maintains otherwise, pointing out that Mrs. Jackson was “never placed at a station.”
“When Mrs. Jackson found out what the union was doing, she never reported for duty in order to actually be placed at a station,” he said. Furthermore, in addition to suspending her and cutting her pay for three days, the Authority also let her go for another four days because of what they said was her encouragement to others not to report to their station.”
“They are hell bent on not allowing their security officers to become a part of the union and because our shop steward was very instrumental in getting many of them to join the union, they want to now try to discourage other officers from getting involved.”
In the meantime however, the BPSU is rallying ‘all’ its troops in support of what they feel is a “clear case of union busting.”
“Our union is of the view that if you touch one member, you touch all. So, if this has to involve every union member stationed at the airport – customs, immigration, security, then it will,” he said.
οΎ ”If Mrs. Jackson is not reinstated, we will have to go this way. So this may have to involve all 5,000 of our members to send a clear message that we will definitely not stand for victimization. We cannot allow this to happen.”
By Macushla Pinder, The Bahama Journal
