Defence force and police officers were called in to man posts at Morton Bahamas Limited yesterday after some 95 percent of its workers delivered on a promise to take industrial action at the Inagua Salt Plant.

President of the Bahamas Industrial Manufacturing and Allied Workers Union (BIMAWU) Wilfred Seymour told the Bahama Journal that about 84 of his members took strike action as early as 4am Friday, leaving the salt plant with "no one" to man operations.

"Right now, everything is in place. A ship is expecting 40,000 tons on Saturday evening. I don’t exactly know what they are going to do with that, but we thought 4am was the right time to do what we had to do," the union president said.

"So right now, operations at the plant are at a standstill. The only persons at Morton right now are security, police and defence force officers. The union is on the other side with their members demonstrating."

And according to Mr. Seymour, his union will remain on strike until a number of longstanding issues are resolved once and for all.

The union has been threatening to strike for weeks.

However in an earlier interview with the Bahama Journal, Mr. Seymour admitted that the plan was to catch Morton executives "off guard."

A major bone of contention is what the union alleges was the wrongful dismissal of its Executive Vice President Ken Rolle.

A number of meetings have taken place with the Department of Labour on the issue.

Labour Minister Dion Foulkes recently referred the matter to the Industrial Tribunal.

But as far as Mr. Seymour was concerned, that move was no more than a stalling tactic.

The union claims there are two other outstanding issues dating as far back as 2004.

"We met a few times at the Department of Labour on these matters. But we came to a stalemate. We were not talking at all," Mr. Seymour said.

"Since then, we’ve kept our distance from Morton and Morton has kept its distance from us. And that’s where we are now…. But the union is ready to start talking when they are. My members have already said that they are not prepared to go to work under certain conditions. These issues have been around for too long. We need some kind of closure."

Supporting the union in its plight is its lawyer Obie Ferguson, along with veteran trade unionists Thomas Bastian and Freddie Munnings Jr. all of whom traveled to Inagua on Friday.

But Friday’s strike at the Inagua salt plant was not only drama.

According to Mr. Seymour, during yesterday’s demonstration, the union’s Secretary General Jennifer Brown was struck by one of Morton’s pick up trucks.

"This was around 5:30am. The truck just drove up and knocked her to the ground. My Assistant Treasurer Ronald Roker was also hit by another pick up truck. He was also threatened that if he continued to picket, he would be ran over," Mr. Seymour said.

Industrial action is not new at Morton Bahamas Limited.

Union executives and company officials have long locked horns over a number of industrial issues.

In 2006, management and union officials at Morton Salt Company remained some distance apart in their respective views about a new industrial agreement for line staff, each side blaming the other for significant delays in the negotiation process thus far.

Accusing management of being anti-union, Mr. Seymour said at the time the union was not willing to negotiate with Morton officials or even consider its present counter-proposal for a contract.

Attempts were made to contact both Labour Minister Dion Foulkes and the managing director at Morton Salt, Glen Bannister.

The Bahama Journal was told that Mr. Bannister was out of the country and would return calls.

By Macushla N. Pinder