Striking workers at the state-owned Caribbean Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) were expected back on the job today, in what their union, the Barbados Workers’ Union (BWU) said was a show of good faith ahead of talks between the state broadcaster and the BWU, initiated by Minister of Labour Dr Esther Byer-Suckoo.
The union Tuesday night called off escalation of the protest over increments, after receiving an invitation from Byer-Suckoo for the meeting, scheduled for 10 a.m. today at CBC in The Pine, St Michael.
“The CBC workers are resuming work on Wednesday. When the minister indicated to us that she was going to be meeting us on Wednesday, we recognized that we could not go into the meeting in good faith while workers remain on strike,” former General Secretary Sir Roy Trotman, who now acts as an advisor to Moore, said.
Still all is not settled as the former union boss revealed that Byer-Suckoo would miss her own meeting, much to the BWU’s dismay.
The minister had chaired the last meeting at which an agreement was reached on the payment of increments dating back to 2012.
“It is still a source of great disappointment that faster action was not taken. We are also disappointed that the minister did not inform us when she wrote us that she was not going to be personally present to be involved in the discussions. The office of the Minister of Labour will be involved and we have no fear about our own confidence, and we have respect for Senator [Harry] Husbands, who we understand will be chairing those meetings.
“As a measure of good faith, we will resume work. We have advised management that workers will be on the job at 5 a.m. and we have urged that the normal respect from both workers and management will be observed and that there will be no silly incidents that would cause disruption outside of the main issues,” Sir Roy stressed. (Barbados TODAY)
