The Tribune

A FEW immigration officers have dribbled back to work with sick slips, claims of being away on vacation, or joining the picket line only on their days off to try to escape the consequences of participation in the immigration-customs strike at the airport. The airport workers walked off the job on April 5.

Their alibis are now being carefully checked. It will be interesting to see who will slip the noose.

However, several seemed glued to the pavement and their placards with spokesman, Sloane Smith, Bahamas Customs Immigration and Allied Workers Union vice president, playing cat-and-mouse with the law.

Labour Minister Dion Foulkes has said that in ordering the strikers back to work "forthwith" and notifying the Industrial Tribunal of their dispute, he did all that was legally required of him to end the strike. On Friday Minister Foulkes gave the strikers 24 hours to return to their jobs. He also officially notified the Industrial Tribunal of the dispute.

If the striking unionists had obeyed the order they should have been at their stations processing arriving passengers on Saturday. However, a hard core, under the leadership of Mr Smith, decided to brazen it out. They defied the order and remained on strike.

"The workers are in breech of the law and can be punished. It is stipulated in the Act," said Mr Foulkes. Under the Act any person failing to discontinue participation in a strike within 24 hours after being ordered to do so, "shall be guilty of an offence and liable, on summary conviction."

In the case of a union or a member of the union's executive committee the penalty is a fine not exceeding $10,000 or imprisonment for a period not exceeding two years or both.

However, union vice president Sloane Smith, playing the role of "doubting Thomas," said that the Minister had only sent a letter of his intention to the union with no proof of an actual referral to the Tribunal. He said when unionists are given evidence to confirm that the trade dispute was in fact referred to the Tribunal, they would readily comply. Mr Foulkes said that the Tribunal was notified on Friday at the same time that the union was ordered back to work. Nowhere in the Act does it say that the Minister has to show anyone proof that the Tribunal was notified.

Mr Smith might want to play the smart aleck, but it is unfair of him to encourage others to remain on strike with him, unless, of course, union funds are robust enough to withstand the heavy fines that can be expected should there be convictions.

Many will recall the bold action taken by President Ronald Reagan some years ago when air traffic controllers --prohibited by federal law to go on strike -- walked off the job for higher salaries and shorter working hours. Employed by the federal government, which prohibits all federal employees from striking, they thumbed their noses and left. The union had pulled this stunt before under four previous presidents, but no action had ever been taken. They obviously thought that President Reagan would be another push over. And so they walked out. They fully expected to get their own way.

"With the controllers on strike, the nation's air travel was briefly crippled and millions of Americans were adversely affected," according to one of the many reports at the time.

Like Mr Foulkes, President Reagan ordered the striking controllers back to work within 48 hours or face being fired. Relying on the inaction of past presidents, most of the workers stayed out on strike. True to his word President Reagan fired more than 11,000 air traffic controllers. And - like Mr Foulkes here in the Bahamas with the Defence Force and faithful staff - he replaced them with military controllers, supervisors, and non-striking workers.

President Reagan went even further by banning the striking workers from being rehired. The Justice Department fined the union. Within months that was the end of the union-- it was decertified.

Of course, our Mr Smith obviously feels in the driver's seat because he thinks that he and his followers are protected by the pending election. But as Bahamians say - "time is longer than rope" -- and the day of reckoning is just around the corner. We hope that those who are following him in his moment of folly will jump ship to save their own skins and - if they are family breadwinners - the future security of their families.