Public Managers Union (PMU) President Winston Moss yesterday expressed surprise over the amount of bonuses National Insurance Board (NIB) executives have been pocketing, and suggested this was unfair given that his union has only been able to negotiate bonuses of $1,000 for middle managers. The Nassau Guardian reported yesterday that eight NIB executives and one person on contract took home bonuses totaling $723,333 between January 2010 and May 2012. NIB Director Algernon Cargill received $194,791.66 in bonuses during that period, according to information made public in recent days.
Moss, who represents 120 managers at NIB, said the large bonus payout to executives was news to him. "As a matter of fact, in our negotiations for our contract, the bonus that we had in our contract is like $1,000 a year based on a couple of criteria relating to whether you're late more than five times a quarter or whether you are in attendance," Moss said. "We've been trying to discuss with management some kind of formula where we could have awarded managers based on performance, but we never could have been able to sit down and really agree on something of that nature."
The bonuses have come to light in a debacle that has developed from a reported behind-the-scenes power struggle at NIB to a seemingly complex court action that has grabbed headlines and created widespread chatter for more than a week now. According to the information released, Cargill and other NIB executives received six bonus payments between January 8, 2010 and May 1, 2012. Moss said the disparity in bonuses between executives and middle managers is unfair. "That's not fair at all, especially when I read in the paper the [former] chairman [Patrick Ward] making a comment to the fact that because NIB was doing so well in collecting the contributions, that's the reason why most of those bonuses were paid out.
I smiled because middle managers are the ones who do all the work," he said. "When we sat down to negotiate to try to get more than $1,000 we were stopped in our tracks." Moss said when the union next negotiates its industrial agreement he hopes to secure larger bonuses based on the amounts that executives received. Meanwhile, Progressive Liberal Party Chairman Bradley Roberts said he was "flabbergasted" when he saw the amount of bonuses given out.
"I thought [the executives'] base salary was very attractive and I thought the reason why you give people attractive salaries was to get them to do the job that they are paid to do," he said. "But then to turn around and give them a hefty bonus. I'm not able to follow that logic." Bernard Evans, deputy chairman of the board of directors at NIB, said at a press conference on Sunday that the "bonuses that executives may have enjoyed under the previous board, will not continue under the present board". "I've been given strict instructions as the [Human Resources] Committee chair that that must be put on hold, if not stopped," Evans said. Minister of Labour and National Insurance Shane Gibson confirmed yesterday that he has put a stop to the bonus system he met in place.
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