Dear Editor,
So the Progressive Liberal Party's (PLP) MP for South Beach and Parliamentary Secretary in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Cleola Hamilton will finally, after nearly a year in Parliament, step down as the president of the Bahamas Nurses Union (BNU) this month. According to the March 1 edition of The Tribune, unionized nurses throughout The Bahamas will head to the polls later this month to elect a new group of executives.
Hamilton's name will not be on the ballot. I was taken aback after learning that the South Beach MP and nurses union president and foreign affairs parliamentary secretary is also the current vice-president of the Trade Union Congress. At a time when 27,000 Bahamians don't even have one job, Hamilton has four. Under the PLP, Hamilton has been allowed to have her cake and eat it too. With many salaries, the South Beach MP must be laughing all the way to the bank.
Free National Movement (FNM) Leader Dr. Hubert A. Minnis, as well as union leaders and political observers, have called on her to resign as either MP or the nurses union president. But neither the PLP government or Hamilton sees anything wrong with her holding on to her MP and parliamentary secretary jobs and her two union posts. According to Hamilton, holding both positions allows her to fight for the union and the government. It also allows her to carry home a bigger salary.
Apparently, what is a conflict of interest to the FNM and those who oppose Hamilton holding two union posts and her MP job isn't a conflict of interest to Hamilton and her supporters. To call it a conflict of interest is ridiculous, says Hamilton in The Tribune. It must have been awkward for Hamilton, as she and scores of unionized nurses stormed the Ministry of Finance in protest of unpaid pay increases promised to them by her PLP government late last year.
I am of the view that the reason why Hamilton was given the South Beach nomination for the PLP and subsequently the parliamentary secretary post was for her relentless antagonism of the Ingraham administration. Hamilton used her union posts to make the Ingraham administration look labor-unfriendly and to launch her political career with the PLP. I submit that the soon-to-be former BNU president has used the unionized nurses in order to fulfill her political aspirations. It was in October of last year when nurses in that union came out in support of Hamilton after former FNM Labour Minister Dion Foulkes called on her to resign as either junior minister or as BNU president and TUC vice-president.
According to them, they wanted her to stay on as president. And so even these nurses cannot see anything wrong with her being a president of a union. What's more, I have heard nothing out of South Beach. Perhaps this is because they too have no issue with their MP being a president of a labor union. All the same, the BNU's spat with the government over money owed to them was not supposed to happen. After all, the president of the BNU is a member of the PLP's parliamentary caucus.
Prime Minister Perry Christie, for all intents and purposes, is a very shrewd politician. He made a concerted effort after his party became the government to cover his bases by appointing many union leaders to important statutory board positions. That way, he wouldn't have the headache of having to constantly deal with their ungrateful and unreasonable unions, as was the case with former Prime Minister Hubert A. Ingraham.
However, his political maneuvers have so far reaped very little dividends as evidenced by the latest industrial unrest with the BNU. Despite his chess moves, several unions in New Providence are still raising hell over perceived industrial grievances. Notwithstanding Hamilton's protests, her holding on to her union post and MP job is a matter of morality as one of her fellow unionists opined in the press. I couldn't agree more.
- Kevin Evans
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