LABOUR Minister Shane Gibson said the government will not sit idly by and allow itself to be threatened by the President of the Customs Union.

Speaking to reporters on the steps of Cabinet yesterday, Minister Gibson said the government currently provides about $100 million in health insurance for various workers in the civil service. He said out of the 20,000 civil servants, the government could not hand pick one group and provide them with coverage that everybody in the uniformed services does not have.

“Everybody knows that the government’s revenue is not performing the way that we would like it to. Everybody knows that we cut back significantly on expenditure. Everybody knows that we have lots and lots of priority as a government and health care is one of those priorities. We understand why they would want health care coverage and that is why we are moving towards National Health Insurance, but in the interim we will not be bullied by providing stuff that we cannot afford to provide,” Mr Gibson said.

Last month the government reversed its decision to implement a new medical insurance package for law enforcement officers after the Bahamas Customs Immigration and Allied Workers Union (BCIAWU) in collaboration with other labour unions expressed concern that the new package was insufficient by comparison to their previous medical coverage. The matter caused contention among the unions, which threatened to strike.

Since then, President of the BCIAWU Sloan Smith said the union realises there are restraints, but those restraints cannot apply to something that is rightfully theirs.

“While the people are waiting, you are simply disrespecting them. We will make our statements when we file our trade dispute. If there is no solution then we ask the government to give us a strike pole, then if we are granted a strike certificate and we will hold it,” he said.

Mr Smith added that the government is certainly wrong if they feel that the union is attempting to “bully” them in this matter.

“If I asked you for what is rightfully ours you should give it to us. What time frame is there for this National Health scheme? It could take one year, or two years. These people are not given the right to the same medical provisions that everyone else has. They know they have 16 days to solve it. And they know that it is the only thing left for us to do,” Mr Smith said.

However, Minister Gibson said if the union’s position is that they want to strike, then the government will have to prepare itself.

“I don’t want them to give us threats and think that we will idly sit by and wait for them to carry it out. We will prepare for them now that they have put us on notice and the whole country on notice. We will now prepare ourselves because we will not be giving into their demands to provide coverage for the clerical workers at immigration and customs because we cannot provide it at this time and we told them that.

“We understand and appreciate that there are lots of hard working civil servants and we understand and appreciate that their salaries are not where they would want them to be or where we would like them to be and at the same time we have to be responsible with our decisions. And we cannot be reacting every time someone threatens to strike. If they want to strike let them strike we know what we have to do, but we will not be bullied into giving something that we cannot afford to give.”