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 Held at the Harcourt Lewis Auditorium, Keith Bourne Complex, Belmont Road, St. Michael- September 27, 2012
Theme “The Labour Movement, Prospects and Challenges”
It is my honour and pleasure to welcome you to this the opening of the Ninth (9th) Biennial Delegates’ Conference of the Congress of Trade Unions and Staff Associations (CTUSAB). This evening we celebrate the beginning of our eighteenth year in the full knowledge that we have been nurtured by the excellent work and inputs of many of our members.
It is to them that we have to give thanks for their diligence in ensuring that we are coming of age as an organisation. Some would argue and with full justification that we were of age when we started.
Among us this evening are many of those persons who have contributed to our upbringing and later we will be bestowing honour on three persons, one posthumously, for their sterling and selfless contribution to the Congress.
Let me though as President, take time out to congratulate all of those persons who during the course of the now ending biennium, have had honour or upward mobility bestowed upon them. Tonight, I single out for special mention, His Excellency, Comrade Robert “Bobby” Morris, Ambassador to CARICOM formerly of the Barbados Workers Union, Sis. Karen Best, Deputy Chief Education Officer former President of the Barbados Union of Teachers and Bro. Herbert Gittens, Acting Principal of the Wesley Hall Junior School, General Secretary the Barbados Union of Teachers and Executive Board member of CTUSAB, I am sure that you would want to join me in congratulating them on their appointments and to wish them well as they carry out their duties.
For a different reason, congratulations are also in order to our outgoing 3rd Vice President, Sis. Paulette Drakes and Sis Verneta Durant, Member of the Executive Board and Chairperson of our Special Events Committee, these youthful looking ladies have recently retired from the public service after giving dedicated service within the nursing profession, Paulette and Vern, do have many years of enjoyment and good health in your retirement.
Brothers and Sisters let me also take time out to recognize and thank those institutions with whom we have worked over the years and who have supported us. It is necessary to always remember on whose shoulders we have been uplifted.
The theme of our Conference is “The Labour Movement: Prospects and Challenges” This theme is set against the overall goals that the CTUSAB has set for itself for 2011-2015. Those are:
- To reposition itself to ensure the greater effectiveness of the organization
- To identify all available opportunities that would afford it to make a more meaningful contribution to the development of the Labour Movement in Barbados
- To strengthen the leadership and human resource capacity within the Labour movement
- To mitigate the threats that face it, which have the potential of reducing its influence and effectiveness as a representative of the workers of Barbados.
These are eminently attainable goals and I will speak to them in detail at tomorrow’s business session when I will focus on our organization and its future growth.
Suffice it to say that our Congress is in need of transformation in the same way that the way we do business in this country is in need of transformation.
This matter of transformation, is presently engaging a nascent gathering of us from the labour movement and the private sector in quiet discussions as we attempt to grapple with this country’s anemic private sector model of entrepreneurship and risk-taking and its vigorous public sector model of bureaucracy and regulation.
As we debate this business model and environment, it is clear that in order for the economic growth for which we now yearn not to remain a pipe dream, there will have to be structural transformation in our economic and social relations, hopefully led by the Social Partnership which has over the past two decades been the guiding light in industrial, societal and economic relations.
On this occasion we are graced with the presence of our very able and comely Minister of Labour and Social Security. It is therefore fitting for me as President to record the Congress’s appreciation for the diligence and hard work exerted by her in bringing to pass in the House of Assembly of Barbados, the Employment Rights Act. I make bold to state that she is not finished yet, for a new Holidays with Pay Act is imminent and the long awaited promulgation of the Safety & Health at Work Act is at hand. Hopeful Ma’am, you will in short order turn your attention to the long awaited Sexual Harassment legislation.
Madam Minister, we thank you and your Government for your exertions on behalf of the working people of Barbados.
Friends, I have just a couple more thoughts before I bring my welcome to a close.
The Congress of Trade Unions and Staff Associations of Barbados is holding its collective breadth as it relates to the reform of the Public Service Act, on which, a year ago, we submitted our comments at the invitation of the Head of the Civil Service and Public Sector Salaries and Wages talks for 2012- 2014. Our lungs, however, are bursting as the carbon dioxide continues to saturate them.
Madam Minister, please convey to our Hon. Prime Minister, who holds responsibility for the Civil Service, that public sector workers are in need of some oxygen.
Brothers and Sisters, friends, I wish on your behalf to congratulate those who will receive awards this evening. This evening we will honour the late Marjorie Marshall. I wish to pay tribute to her memory. She was a long standing Trustee of CTUSAB. Another one of our awardees Mrs. Marguerite Cummins-Williams cannot be here with us tonight, as she is currently off island. We are nonetheless eternally grateful for their outstanding contributions to labour relations in Barbados and the labour movement worldwide.
Finally, we look forward to the address from our friend and keynote speaker, Senator Brother David Massiah, President of the Caribbean Congress of Labour, Senator Massiah hails from my second home, Antigua and Barbuda, where I had the good fortune to live for several years in youthful bliss and innocence.
Ladies and gentlemen, I welcome you all and wish you an evening of fraternization and celebration.
I thank you.
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