Caribbean Public Servants Want Harassment/Violence Eliminated at Work

A week-long conference – the fifty-first assembly for public service representatives of the Caribbean Public Services Association, C.P.S.A., ended this afternoon in Belize City. There were four key resolutions that came out of the event, which the public service unions from the various countries and territories will present to their respective governments for ratification. President of Belize’s Public Service Union, Dean Flowers, told News Five that the main resolution calls for governments to ratify Convention One-Ninety, which addresses harassment and violence in work spaces. 

Dean Flowers

Dean Flowers, President, Public Service Union
“The most important resolution in my humble opinion is that of convention 190 whereby the C.P.S.A. will now develop a campaign aimed at pushing for all governments in the Caribbean to not only sign on to, but to ratify Convention 190, which deals with harassment and violence in the workplace. That needs to be not only ratified, but enacted into law across the Caribbean. And so you will see coming out of this conference, you will see a campaign being developed by public service unions across the region to push for the ratification of that, so that all persons In the workplace can be protected from harassment and violence. Another very important resolution was, uh, for the, for the establishment of a committee to train first responders to address bullying and those, and all forms of discrimination in the, in the, in the workplace. Um, these things are not unique to Belize. They are prevalent all across the Caribbean and so that’s another very important one. The third resolution, which comes out of the men’s forum was for the constitution to be revised to also acknowledge the men’s committee. We were operating in an informal manner, so to speak, since we were not formally recognized in the CPSC constitution. What we will see, um, the work that will continue coming out of this conference also will birth a revised constitution, which is expected to be ratified in Bermuda, who will be the host of next year’s conference. The fourth resolution, which was submitted by Belize to address the issue of financial members at conference is for the Credentials Committee, which is normally appointed by the executive. The executive committee for that credential committee to do a little bit more in terms of liaising with affiliates and to set timelines and deadlines in accordance with the constitution whereby, uh, financial members of the CPSC can be recognized, sorry, um, at least one month prior to conference so that that exercise of ascertaining who’s financial and not does not take place at conference, but is, but takes place one month prior to conference.”