Amid threats of industrial action from the managerial and line-staff unions at the Bahamas Electricity Corporation (BEC) over changes to employees' sick pay benefit, Deputy Prime Minister Philip Brave Davis said yesterday the status quo will remain until both sides come to some resolve.
Davis said he has already advised labor consultants and conciliators in the Department of Labour to facilitate a meeting sometime next week among the unions involved and the corporation's executives.
"If we are talking I would hope that would not happen, and once we are in discussion, the status quo will remain," Davis told The Nassau Guardian at the Progressive Liberal Party's (PLP) 60th anniversary celebrations at the Sheraton Nassau Beach Resort.
"...I would not want to prejudge the outcome, but the result of the discussions ought to bring an outcome that is acceptable to all. That is my anticipation and my expectation."
A weeks-long standoff between BEC Executive Chairman Leslie Miller and the Bahamas Electrical Workers Union (BEWU) was expected to come to a head on Wednesday.
Miller vowed that on payday, the salaries of employees on sick leave would be adjusted, eliminating the sick pay benefit.
He called the practice of employees getting 100 percent of their salaries from BEC for sick leave and being able to claim one third of their salary from the National Insurance Board (NIB) "double-dipping".
BEWU President Stephano Greene has said that employees are being legally paid, and if just one employee's salary was adjusted the union would strike immediately.
"The union is not only prepared to take the necessary industrial action, but also to sue the corporation and sue him," Greene insisted over the weekend.
The National Congress of Trade Unions of The Bahamas (NCTUB) has also threatened mass industrial action over the corporation's decision to amend sick pay.
In response to the threats last week, Miller said the corporation had teams in Grand Bahama and Florida on stand-by in the event of industrial action.
He said electricity would be restored within 24 hours of any disruption, and those involved should expect not to return to BEC. Yesterday, Davis said, "It doesn't help to issue threats like that. On the one hand, the union complains about what the chairman says, but they go and do the same thing.
Two wrongs do not make a right." NCTUB President Jennifer Isaacs-Dotson and Bahamas Public Service Union (BPSU) President John Pinder have taken grave exception to Miller's comments.
"We are quite disheartened to hear the chairman and even members of Parliament say that they are prepared to bring in people from Miami," Isaacs-Dotson said.
"We claim that we don't have any money, but we can afford to bring in workers from Grand Bahama; we can afford to bring them in from Miami."
Pinder told hundreds of members at the union's tri-annual meeting that although he does not want a "black Christmas", Greene must "do what you have to do to protect your membership".
Around two dozen employees are currently on sick leave, according to Greene, who has asserted that those employees desperately need their sick pay benefit to pay high medical bills.
The BEWU expects to meet with Prime Minister Perry Christie before the end of the month. BEC spent $3 million on sick pay between September 2012 and September 2013, and spent in excess of that in its previous budgetary year.
Despite the unions' claim that employees have enjoyed the sick pay benefit as part of their industrial agreements for years, Davis said it was never intended to work that way. "Wherever that practice started, I don't quite know," he said.
"I know when I was chairman of National Insurance between 2002 and 2007, I had initiated discussions to arrest and address this issue, but we lost the government at the time."
He acknowledged that the practice does exist in several other government agencies and corporations. However, he said he expects discussions to occur across the board about amending the sick pay benefit.
Click here to read more at The Nassau Guardian
