By ANNELIA NIXON

Tribune Business Reporter

anixon@tribunemedia.net

A trade union leader is calling for better consultation by the Government over proposed labour reforms and actions following the Prime Minister’s revelation of upcoming civil service pay increases.

Deron Brooks, the Bahamas Customs, Immigration and Allied Workers Union (BCIAWU) president, told Tribune Business that the lack of dialogue between the Government and the unions leaves no room for input and access to information.

He cited Philip Davis KC’s disclosure that civil service ‘middle managers’ will receive a pay rise as early as end-June as one example of such lack of consultation, adding that he and the union are unable to advise there members as to who will be included in this.

“I am told that there was an announcement made by the Government as it relates to an increase in salary for middle managers,” Mr Brooks said. “So the question was asked: ‘Who do you consider middle managers?’ And membership was asking, but see... what my definition of a middle manager might be may not be what the Government considers to be a middle manager.

“So even in that regard, as simple as that is, members would ask and we didn’t have a definitive answer, because we don’t know what government deems to be a middle manager. That’s just one example. So it’s just things like that.

“Members would ask us a question based on the statements made by the Government on what they plan to do, and we would have no answers to give them;, no definitive answers, because we were never consulted. So we won’t know what the Government’s plan is... So we’re not against what they’re trying to do, but we can’t answer our members because we don’t have the information,” Mr Brooks added.

“Here’s the Government’s example of consultation. They contact you and tell you what they’re going to do. So it really doesn’t matter what you think. They just there to tell you what they’re going to do. So it’s not where you have an input in anything. That’s their version of consultation. They just tell you what’s happening, or what’s going to happen.

“It doesn’t matter how you feel about it, or if you have any input in it, and how it would affect anybody. That’s usually their definition of consultation. Sometimes they don’t give you the option for input, or most times you don’t get an option for input. That’s their definition, usually, of consultation. They contact you and tell you what’s going to happen. So it’s not a decision that’s arrived at mutually.”

Noting that public and private sector unions both have issues that remain unresolved, Mr Brooks also recommended that the Industrial Tribunal be given the authority to enforce its own rulings. He said without that power, the Tribunal can rule in a worker’s favour, but an employer does not have to comply with any award because “there was legally nothing that you could do” to enforce it in this forum.

Sherry Benjamin, the National Congress of Trade Unions of The Bahamas (NCTUB) vice-president, who is also the Bahamas Communications and Public Officers Union’s (BCPOU) president, said she sat in on a meeting a few weeks ago aimed at providing feedback on labour reform proposals already submitted via the National Tripartite Council.

She said trade unions are pushing for reforms regarding “living wage in sectors, and increasing minimum wage to those sectors that cannot take [a] livable wage increase”, as well as provisions for maternity, paternity and parental leave.

Noting that mental health leave was a “hot topic”, Ms Benjamin said that while it has been proposed the details still need ironing out. She stressed the importance of mental health days off for workers, especially those in the BCPOU.

“The hot topic was the mental leave,” Ms Benjamin said. “For me, I represent workers who work in the media sector who have to go on these gruesome scenes and [are] exposed to all of these things, these gruesome sites and events that would happen; the car accidents, the murders and all that stuff. And, of course, it plays on the mental psyche.

“And so we’ve been asking. You see how the suicide rate in The Bahamas has increased tremendously over the past, I would say two years, or at least since COVID. Actually, the suicide rate in this country has just been going up and going up and going up.

“And that is because we believe that, not that people have mental illnesses, it’s just that people need sometimes to just take a reset, to be able to catch themselves and to take that mental break away from work, or even just to be able to go and sit down and talk to someone if they’re having a stressful period, or they’re dealing with a situation that they can’t deal with on their own,” she added.

“They’re able to get that break where they can go and get some help to deal with someone. We’re not saying that people who do that have mental illness, which is something different, but they just need that time to be able to reset, to recalibrate and get back to themselves where they can function properly on the job.”

As for maternity, paternity and parental leave, Ms Benjamin said the unions are hoping for 16 weeks maternity leave as recommended by the International Labour Organisation (ILO), four weeks paternity leave and four weeks parental leave.

“We see that our children are suffering. The young people in this country are suffering because they don’t have that relationship with their parents,” Ms Benjamin added. “That initial relationship with the parents in those formative years, [it] plays a lasting role in the way those children are raised and the way they are reared.

“The Bible tell you to train up a child in the way it should go, and when it is old, it will not depart. And so that is why we’re pushing, and not just for maternity leave and paternity leave. We’re also pushing for parents who may not be able to have children, but taking on responsibility by adopting children, to also have the ability to have that bonding time with the child that they would have adopted by having a leave for them as well.”

Ms Benjamin said COVID-19 taught the importance of having legislation in place for remote work. “COVID taught us all a lesson that that has to be a part of the discussions moving forward,” she said. “There has to be some consideration for remote work, because very few businesses in this country were prepared for remote work.

“But we see that it could work, and it did work during COVID. And so the fact is, the structure, it was just something done haphazard in most of the business sector. Some places were not even able to move to a work from home because they were not prepared for it, equipment wise, and all of that stuff, and so that conversation needs to be had.

“People need to be ready, because we don’t know when the next pandemic will hit The Bahamas. We don’t know what catastrophe can hit The Bahamas, where we have to resort to a work from home again,” she continued.

“Also, when you look at the work from home, you have to look at also the fact that you could still have accidents at home. So how does the NIB industrial accident fit into it? So there’s a lot of conversations that, again, need to be had, but definitely work from home needs to be structured in our Employment Act so that the basic standards are set for employees who have to work from home.”

Ms Benjamin said livable wage was among the recommendations, noting that she understands “every sector will not be able to realise a livable wage”.

“The Government, the public sector, the private sector, everybody could basically be satisfied if you tailor it based on the sectors,” she said. “ If you set up a livable wage to say $800 per week per person, a ‘Mom and Pop’ store may not be able to afford that. But they would probably be able to afford the increase in the minimum wage and could tailor their profit margins to that increase.

“The discussions are ongoing, and we intend to keep the discussions going so that, at some point in the very near future, the workers in this country are able to actually survive off of whatever they make, without having to live pay cheque to pay cheque or hand to mouth.”

The labour reform ‘white paper’ is currently a working paper, and stakeholders have until June 15 to submit more feedback. Ms Benjamin, who is serving as acting NTCUB president in place of Dwayne Woods, said she will be meeting with the National Congress of Trade Unions Bahamas (TUC) to “flesh out everything that we want to see added”.

“A lot of the recommendations that we had discussed initially we would have already submitted,” Ms Benjamin said. “There are a few more stuff that we’re still trying to flesh out. But, at this particular point, we are all full in Labour Day mode, and so we put that discussion on hold.

“But next [this] week, God’s willing, we will get back in there, and we will definitely have the opportunity to sit down and flesh out everything that we want to see added to what we learned made the cut into the white paper. And what we would like to see added to that White Paper, we will sit down and flesh that out next week before the 15th deadline, and then be able to submit that.”