The Tribune

EDITOR, The Tribune. I LISTENED with keen interest to remarks made by Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham in Exuma over the weekend (March 3-4) concerning the industrial unrest in the Customs and Immigration Departments at the Lynden Pindling International Airport (LPIA). The prime minister made it emphatically clear that his government will not give in to the unreasonable demands of the union of these government agencies. Apparently, immigration line staff had failed to show up for work on Saturday (March 3), causing a major back-up at the LPIA. One thousand passengers, many of them visitors, were negatively affected by this move which can rightly be described as a blackmail. What is even more disturbing about this industrial action is that it had coincided with the visit of Prince Harry to The Bahamas. In addition to the industrial action taken over that weekend, immigration officers who were scheduled to work in the evening turned up for work at 9am on March 5th and 6th. According to the March 7 edition of The Nassau Guardian, officers rostered to work in the evening who turned up for work on Tuesday (March 6) were sent home. Apparently, these officers are determined to defy their employer by disregarding the shift system. However, Minister of Immigration Brent Symonette informed The Nassau Guardian that since 1996 immigration officers were hired specifically to do shift work and more recent employees have been definitely hired under that term. If this is so, then how is it possible that these civil servants can get away with shaking their fists at the government of The Bahamas? If these immigration and customs officers have no intentions of obeying their employer, then they should look for another job. It's that simple. Had they been working in the private sector, they would have been fired on the spot for their blatant rebellion. At a time when the national unemployment rate stands at over 15 per cent, I find it absolutely amazing that a union would push its members to rebel against their employer. Obviously, the union is behaving in a reckless manner. Whichever party wins the general election needs to take a serious look into criminalising unions in this country. We cannot have these irresponsible hucksters playing Russian roulette with our bread and butter. Why should the entire nation be brought to its knees because a thousand civil servants don't want to work night shift? These people were intending to hurt this country's tourism sector and embarrass the Ingraham administration in the process. Moreover, the thing that is most disconcerting and indeed frightening about these government workers and their union is that they are prepared to hazard the financial well-being of The Bahamas in order to get what they want. These civil servants are so short-sighted, they can't see that their actions could further ruin a tourism sector that is already ailing. But it seems as if they are either unaware of the sorry financial state of this country or they just don't care. These civil servants obviously don't appreciate the 30,000-plus Bahamians who are unemployed and are having great difficulty in finding work. If customs and immigration officers think Bahamians will feel sympathetic to their cause, then they are seriously mistaken. I know of at least three Grand Bahamians who have college degrees and are working in low-paying, entry level jobs. One of them, who is a gas-pump attendant, has a degree in accounting. I know of another one with a master's degree who works in a fast food restaurant in Freeport. If these ungrateful civil servants don't want to work, then they should give way to the hundreds of unemployed and under-employed Bahamians who are eminently qualified to take their place. I think the civil service is over bloated with too many inept, ungrateful, spoiled Bahamians who have a sense of entitlement. The Bahamas Customs Immigration and Allied Workers Union (BCIAWU) is well aware that it is election time and so its leaders and members are trying to get what they can before Bahamians to go the polls. In other words, they are trying to blackmail PM Ingraham and his administration. I guess they are thinking that the prime minister is so desperate to hold on to power that he would acquiesce to their unreasonable demands, no matter what it is. I understand that before the shift system was implemented, customs and immigration workers were making millions of dollars in overtime pay. This was an unnecessary financial burden on the Treasury. In some cases, many of these workers were working up to 20 to 40 overtime hours every week. Many of these workers' overtime pay was, in some cases, thousands more than their base salaries. Rather than pay one worker thousands of dollars in overtime pay each month, the Ingraham administration decided to hire more customs and immigration officers instead. Rather than having customs and immigration officers working up to 30 overtime hours a week, the prudent decision was made to share the economic pie by hiring more Bahamians who needed work. As far as I am concerned, this decision makes sense. Realizing that the new shift system and the loss of overtime pay would greatly annoy these officers, the government increased their base salaries. But obviously the union and its members are not the least bit satisfied with this. They want to return to the good old days when they made thousands in overtime pay each month. Over the years, many of them had become accustomed to living a lavish lifestyle. But the gravy train has come to a screeching halt. That is why the union is so furious with the government. I hope the government of The Bahamas doesn't give in to the blackmail of the BCIAWU and its members. If they continue to disregard the shift system, then the government should fire them. There are thousands of jobless Bahamians who are more than willing to work on shifts. KEVIN EVANS Freeport, Grand Bahama. March 7, 2012.