PSU says it is supporting the B.N.T.U. and N.T.U.C.B. in their fight

Marvin Blades

While the OSH Bill is high on the list of priorities, there are other matters for which the unions, with the B.N.T.U. on the forefront…are agitating. The PSU has taken some criticism for what is seen in some quarters as a stand-off stance when aggressive agitation is called for. PSU President Blades says they support the B.N.T.U. and support the N.T.U.C.B. and the principles for which they are fighting. According to Blades, they have tried dialogue, and it is now time to take it to the next level.

Marvin Blades, President, PSU

“We support B.N.T.U. in all their efforts and of course the joint team does work along with B.N.T.U.  In fact, we go back to the table on the twenty-eighth. So we have to ensure that we stay together and get things going in regards to the rest of the proposal. We are not only talking about salary adjustments; we have other proposals on the table. So we are ensuring that we get all these proposals in order so that we can go on the table and negotiate for our membership—both B.N.T.U., P.S.U. and A.P.S.S.M. But the national issues…one of the thing is as you know B.N.T.U. is also a member of the Trade Union Congress and the national issues that they are bringing up have been brought up for a while. And because this is the year of the worker, we believe that these issues need to be tackled this year. We need to talk and look at these issues because we have tried the dialogue in the past, and yes it works in some case and in other cases, it just is not moving forward. So it had to make another step to make it start and move the machinery around. So we definitely support it and we encourage and it is something that we believe we want to move to the next level in regards to these different national issues. If we don’t deal with them now, come two years, three years from now, five years from now, the governments change or don’t, the issues will still be there if it is not solved now.”

As we said, it is doubtful that the OSH Bill will be on the agenda of the House on Wednesday, but the B.N.T.U. will continue its round of industrial action in San Ignacio on Friday.