Industrial action still ongoing

All shift work at Portvale has been put on hold and employees will only be required for regular day work hours as industrial action continues at Barbados’ lone sugar factory, just over a week into the 2026 harvest.

In a memo to all staff yesterday from operations manager Shanice Stevenson titled Temporary Suspension Of Crop And Shift Work, the Barbados Energy and Sugar Company Inc. (BESCO), which runs the Blowers, St James factory, stated that from today, “all shift work will be temporarily suspended, and regular day work hours will start. All workers are to report for work for the hours of 7 a.m. to 4 p.m., Monday to Friday only, until further notice. Please note that during this time, workers’ rates will revert to their contracted out-of-crop rates”.

Called off

It called off the 11 p.m. to 7 a.m. A-Shift scheduled for last night to allow staff to start work at 7 a.m. today.

Unity Workers’ Union and its members at the factory have taken protest action since last week Wednesday over the company’s refusal to recognise it as the bargaining unit, rather than the Barbados Workers’ Union (BWU). The union also wants a revision of the shift system, which general secretary Caswell Franklyn said scheduled workers to be on the job every day.

When contacted yesterday, Franklyn said he could not comment on the letter as he was not officially made aware of it. He said the union had a meeting scheduled with the Chief Labour Officer and management of BESCO yesterday afternoon, but it did not materialise, and he was unsure whether it was going to be only postponed or cancelled altogether.

Last week, Franklyn said he had received official correspondence from BESCO, posted March 19, signed by general manager Marlon Munroe and copied to the Chief Labour Officer, stating that it was already in advanced negotiations with the BWU, and to engage in parallel talks would “be inconsistent with established industrial relations practice and would undermine the integrity of the collective bargaining process already underway”.

General secretary of the Congress of Trade Unions and Staff Associations of Barbados, Dennis de Peiza, told the Weekend Nation that while more than one union could be present at any one organisation, there could only be one bargaining unit.

“There can be more than one union representing people in the workplace, but usually one of them that has the majority of membership is the one that would be the bargaining unit.

Normal principle

“The employer has to establish who is the body which is recognised as the bargaining agent within the workplace. The normal principle is that the one which has, as we use the term, 50 plus one [per cent], is the bargaining unit. If it’s an existing bargaining unit that is being challenged, then the other party has to do what is required and to seek to establish that it has [the majority]. In other words, they have the onus to prove,” he explained.

De Peiza said the easiest way for a union to challenge another to be recognised as a bargaining unit was to involve the Labour Department, ask the Chief Labour Officer to conduct an audit and ascertain which union in fact had the majority of workers.

He maintained that the issue did not necessarily have to be contentious, as two or more unions could still collaborate and present a joint front if they so desired to reach a common goal. Barring this, he added, there were mechanisms in place to deal with such matters, from the level of the Chief Labour Officer to the Minister of Labour and beyond.

Franklyn said there was a plan in place at the level of the Labour Department to ascertain which union had the majority, but the decision was still at BESCO. As such, he said he would not let up the pressure until the right thing was done.

Meanwhile, owner of Ashbury Plantation in St George, Michael Gill, said he was at a loss as to what was going on but the industry was suffering.

“It doesn’t make any sense to anybody or the country. What is happening, they’re just at loggerheads, it seems. I wish I knew really what the whole truth is of what’s going on,” he said on television last night.

Gill also warned against anyone buying sugar cane on the streets as he said canes were just piling up and being infested with rats, so those buying cane from the roadside were putting their health at risk. (CA)

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