The Tribune

By YOURI KEMP

Tribune Business Reporter

ykemp@tribunemedia.net

The Bahamas Taxi Cab Union’s (BTCU) president yesterday cited unspecified “political interference” as the reason for why it has defected from the Trade Union Congress (TUC) and joined a new umbrella union body.

Wesley Ferguson told Tribune Business that his union and other founding Bahamas National Alliance Trade Union Congress (BNATUC) members decided to split with their respective umbrella bodies, and form a new grouping, to “move ahead of the political rhetoric.....and look out for the rights of the people”.

And he warned both the TUC and National Congress of Trade Unions of The Bahamas (NCTUB) that the newly-formed Alliance was hungry to attract more affiliates. “We are looking to pull a lot of those other smaller unions away from the TUC and National Congress of Trade Unions (NCTU), all the unions that are lagging behind because they will basically have a fresh start with a breath of fresh air,” Mr Ferguson said.

With the move threatening to stoke division and discord in the union movement ahead of Friday’s annual Labour Day march, he added: “A lot of people think this is being controversial because the Government is very crafty, and you are going to see everything that glitters isn’t gold.

“You would listen to the Prime Minister’s Budget debate, and you would think it was paved in gold, but the whole point is that you can’t listen to everything the Prime Minister is saying because they have a way of working around the unions to try and circumvent the authority of the president.”

This, Mr Ferguson said, often involves the Government making public pronouncements on union matters without consulting the relevant leadership on such matters. “They think they can just throw you a bone and you would just dive for it, instead of giving us the opportunity to look at matters to see if we can get better out of it or is there more we can negotiate out of it,” Mr Ferguson said.

“As long as the Government could work around the union, then the Government could circumvent the authority of the union, and the next thing you know the union has no teeth. I heard the Prime Minister say during his budget debate that the government is going to give public service drivers a raise, but they also have to remember that public service drivers include taxis. We are yet to sit down with the Government to even negotiate or start any conversation about what percentage raise we want.”

Jo-Beth Coleby-Davis, minister for housing and transport, previously said she is seeking to work out an arrangement with the public service drivers, including the taxi drivers, and will come back with recommendations soon.

Mr Ferguson, though, has said he does not want to commit to any fare rise yet due to uncertainty over how high gasoline prices will be six months from now. Prematurely accepting a fare rise, he added, would expose taxi cab union members to further losses if the increase was insufficient to cover surges in global oil prices.

He added: “She said she was working on something, but did we sit down and talk about it? Don’t just give it to me; don’t just give me anything. You see, the Government is very crafty with that. Because what if they give me $2 straight across the board, and they think it’s some big deal? But, when you do the studies, you realise the $2 isn’t anything.

“You can get $2 now and, by July, gas goes up again and shoots up to $10 [per gallon]. Then what happens to the $2 if gas was $6.50 when they gave it to us? The $2 would be insufficient, so you are right back where you were before.”