The Barbados Energy & Sugar Company Inc. (BESCO) and the Unity Workers Union (UWU) continue to hurl accusations at each other as this year’s sugar crop remains stalled.
BESCO is calling the UWU’s position “excessive and financially unsustainable”, while the union is charging that Portvale sugar factory’s management is seeking to make the union a scapegoat.
In a press statement yesterday, BESCO said the “ongoing industrial relations dispute” with the UWU was a cause for stress, but it remained committed to workers, lawful operations and a fair resolution.
“Our priority is to restore confidence through transparency, respectful engagement and solutions that protect jobs, safety, and the long-term viability of the industry.
“We want to be clear: this matter must keep workers’ interests at the centre. To date, however, the UWU’s pursuit of formal recognition as the bargaining agent appears to have taken precedence over clearly identifying and articulating specific grievances in a manner that would allow BESCO to responsibly assess and address them,” it stated.
However, UWU general secretary Caswell Franklyn told the MIDWEEK NATION there was no ongoing industrial action at Portvale Factory.
“The issue is that they want a scapegoat. We took industrial action over the shift system for three days. When they suspended that system and the crop along with it, we went back to work that day. There is no ongoing industrial action; the real problem has to do with . . . parts at the factory. Besides, how can they say we are the hold-up if they are still refusing to see us as the bargaining unit? They can’t have it both ways,” he said.
Franklyn said his issue with the shift system is that it required workers to be on the job seven days a week. He pointed out that the factory was classified as a shop under the Shops Act and thus could not schedule workers to be on the job more than five days a week.
Temporary suspension
In a release dated March 26, BESCO announced the temporary suspension of crop and shift system work.
In yesterday’s release, it explained sugar and molasses had been manufactured using a 24-hour system since the company’s inception in 2024. It added this system was to allow for continuous production and was in accordance with the Safety And Health At Work Act, the successor to the previous Factories Act.
“The UWU has publicly contended that Portvale should be treated as a ‘shop’ under legislation intended for shops, stores and retail businesses.
Industrial relations specialists who have reviewed the legislation consider this position to be incorrect. Portvale is an industrial manufacturing facility, not a retail establishment, and its scheduling approach is aligned with the appropriate health and safety and workplace framework for factory operations.
“BESCO must be honest about what is sustainable. The UWU’s demands – particularly the approach being advanced to treat the factory as a ‘shop’ so that additional hours required to roster a 24-hour system would attract further time-and-a-half and double-time payments on top of existing premiums – are excessive and financially unsustainable.
“BESCO is committed to constructive engagement on lawful, safe and financially responsible approaches to stabilising earnings,” it stated.
(CA)
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