The Tribune

By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

The Government was yesterday urged to use its temporary majority ownership of the new mobile operator to “force” Cable Bahamas into industrial agreement negotiations, amid warnings that failing to do so would cost it votes.

Bernard Evans, the Bahamas Communications and Public Officers Union (BCPOU) president, told Tribune Business it was now time for the Christie administration to ‘live up’ to its pledge that it was a friend of labour.

He expressed particular alarm that Cable Bahamas, which has Board and management control at NewCo2015 Ltd, the nation’s second mobile operator, had hired a team of ex-Digicel executives to run the nation’s second mobile operator.

He pointed to the latter’s record throughout the Caribbean, where trade unions have enjoyed little to no success in attracting members from the mobile specialist’s workforce.

Mr Evans expressed hope, though, that the Government having to temporarily take 51.75 per cent majority ownership of NewCo2015 “might be a blessing in disguise” for the union and those it hopes to represent.

“We’re hopeful the Government will go ahead and force Cable Bahamas to sit down and allow the workers of Cable Bahamas their constitutional rights to form a union, and enter into collective bargaining negotiations and an agreement,” Mr Evans told Tribune Business.

“If there was a time when workers needed strong representation, it is now.”

The Government has been forced to take majority NewCo2015 ownership, via the HoldingCo vehicle, because it proved impossible to attract private investors to capitalise the latter with so many ‘financial unknowns’ surrounding the mobile liberalisation process.

However, a private placement to attract such investors into HoldingCo is set to be launched in August, and closed by early September, meaning that there is only a two-month window for the Government to act on Mr Evans’s wishes.

The BCPOU leader, though, gave a thinly-veiled warning that the Christie administration might suffer negative repercussions at the ballot box in the upcoming general election should it not accede to the union’s demands.

“We definitely don’t welcome it,” he said of the licence award to NewCo2015 and Cable Bahamas, “but this is the hand we have been dealt, and we will do what we have to do.

“This is election season, and we’ll see what the Government’s going to do. The Government has the power right now, but do they have the will to do the right thing? We’ll hold them accountable if they don’t.

“They say they’re the friends of labour. This is the time to prove it. We’ll remember it next year.”

Mr Evans added that the union was “very, very concerned” that NewCo2015 will be run by ex-Digicel Caribbean chief, Damian Blackburn, and a team of executives who previously worked for the pan-Caribbean mobile specialist.

“Digicel is the same creature,” he added. “They don’t allow workers there to have a union, which prevails as well in the countries they operate in.”

The BCPOU has been attempting to establish a presence among Cable Bahamas’ workforce with little to no success for more than two decades now.

Its efforts appear to have been given added urgency both by successive downsizings at the Bahamas Telecommunications Company (BTC) in recent years, which have cost it members, and the possibility of attracting new ones from both Cable Bahamas’ and NewCo2015’s workforces.

Mr Evans said it was “disheartening” and “so disappointing” that Cable Bahamas had won the second mobile licence, as he criticised the company’s past performance towards both its customers and workers.

Both he and other union leaders, especially Bahamas Public Service Union (BPSU) chief, John Pinder, have publicly backed the rival bid by Virgin Mobile (Bahamas).

There appears to have been a ‘convergence of interests’ between the two sides over the mobile licence, with the unions - especially the BCPOU - seeking to expand their membership and influence, and Virgin Mobile (Bahamas) wanting to defeat Cable Bahamas for the licence.

Mr Evans argued that Virgin Mobile (Bahamas), as a completely new player, would have brought greater levels of investment and employment to the market, suggesting it needed 140 more employees than NewCo2015 - which is able to piggyback off Cable Bahamas - requires.

“They would have brought in their own money, so new money would have been coming into the country,” Mr Evans told Tribune Business.

“We did meet with one of their [Virgin Mobile] principals; we met with him a few times. We were very impressed with their proposal and their approach; for Bahamians to come in from the very top right down to the workers, as opposed to bringing in expatriates from away.”

Mr Evans confirmed that the Virgin Mobile (Bahamas) executive the unions met with was John Gregg, former chief financial officer for UK cable company, NTL.

Mr Gregg was a principal in the Bluewater Communications Holdings group that was negotiating to buy BTC under the first Christie administration, although that deal was rejected by the Ingraham government.

Bluewater was represented, while he was in private practice, by now-deputy prime minister, Philip Davis.