More BADMC cuts

Publication: Sunday Sun
Date: Sun, Aug 3, 1997
Page: 3A
Byline: Terry Ally

MORE lay-offs are coming at the financially-beleaguered Barbados Agricultural Development and Marketing Corporation (BADMC), says a National Union of Public Workers (NUPW) official.

The official also indicated the NUPW's days in the social partnership with Government may be numbered.

"We were told by management that a total of 50 workers are to be laid off but I believe that figure can rise. There is no conclusive figure," acting NUPW general secretary Dennis Clarke said.

The 50 include 33 laid off from the Export Packaging Unit last week.

Efforts since last Wednesday to reach BADMC chairman Tyrone Power were unsuccessful. Telephone calls left at his home were not returned.

The Hope Dairy Farm is to be closed while staff is to be down-sized in the security, maintenance, transport and cold storage departments of the Bridgetown outlet, Clarke said.

NUPW officials believe Government has breached its social contract with workers and is practising double-speak.

Clarke said Government's action brings into serious question the addendum to the Protocol on Incomes and Wages dealing with job security.

"The Ministry of Agriculture has various stations across the island as well as Rural Development projects coming on stream and we are saying that some of these workers, if the Government is really and truly honouring its commitment to the Protocol, then they can retrain and re-allocate the workers to other areas."

Responding to suggestions that the lay-offs could be political, based on comments in Parliament that the BADMC was a political "pork barrel" of the Opposition Democratic Labour Party, Clarke said if it was regarded as such, "the union is saying that the pork barrel has been used by both political parties; the records are there to be seen".

Last year 242 workers were laid off out of a total complement of about 500.