The Prison Officers Association (POA) says it is has terminated its membership within the Congress of Trade Unions and Staff Associations of Barbados (CTUSAB) after its president was slapped last week with four charges related to sedition and mutiny at the prisons.
In a statement, the POA said that Trevor Browne, “even though maintaining his innocence, has been charged with essentially carrying out the functions normally associated with a trade union leader”.
He pleaded not guilty to the charges when he appeared in a magistrate’s court last Friday and faces up to one year in jail if convicted. He was released on BDS$1,000 (One Barbados dollar=US$0.50 cents) bail and will re-appear in court on February 18 next year.
The prosecution alleges that Browne, who has 34 years service, between May 1 and 9 this year, maliciously endeavoured to seduce prison officer Shanell Ellis-Vaughn from her duty as well as seeking to seduce Ophneal Austin, David Davis and Stephenson Trotman during the same period.
In the statement, the POA said that prior to 1982 prison officers enjoyed the constitutional right to belong to a trade union of their choice.
But it said an amendment to the Prisons Act provided for the establishment of the Prison Officers Association and as a result “of that amendment, prison officers lost their constitutionally guaranteed right to belong to a trade union”.
The POA said that the legislation notes that it should be independent of, and unassociated with, any association outside the Service, other than similar associations in and for Anguilla, Antigua, Belize, Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, Jamaica, Montserrat, Saint Christopher and Nevis, St. Lucia, Saint Vincent or Trinidad and Tobago.
Further, at section 24C the amendment goes on to prohibit a prison officer from becoming a member of unauthorised associations. Interestingly, among other things, subsection (5) defines “unauthorised associations” to mean a trade union as defined in section 2 of the Trade Unions Act.
But the POA said that notwithstanding this prohibition, since 1992 the government has allowed it to become a member of the CTUSAB “and by so doing, the government has allowed prison officers to freely associate with trade unions and become part of the much vaunted Social Partnership.
“In addition, management of the prison has facilitated the Association’s membership in CTUSAB by granting officers time off to attend trade union activity.”
The POA said that in order to protect its members from “any further criminal charges arising from its association with trade unions or anything that is likely to be interpreted as trade union activity, the Prison Officers Association has terminated its membership in CTUSAB, until such time as the 1982 amendments to the Prisons Act are repealed by Parliament or struck down by the High Court”.
