Speaking in parliament on Tuesday Barbados Prime Minister Freundel Stuart says he’s willing to meet with social partners clamoring for a meeting. He stated such a meeting will not be behind closed doors.
Stuart was speaking the day after thousands of Barbadians joined with trade unions and the Barbados Private Sector Association (BPSA) in protest against the government. They were pressing for the government to meet with the social partnership over recently implemented budgetary measures.
Not in secret
The PM said, “Whenever the meeting is held, it is not going to held in secret. It is going to be a nationally televised meting when’re Barbadians can hear what the government is about, what the social partners are about….it is going to take place in the full glare of the public. I will communicate to the head of the Private sector association and other social partners when the meeting will take place.”
The Prime Minister’s decision to have a public meeting follows confusion surrounding what transpired at a meeting with the private sector last month.
According to Stuart, during the meeting on June 21, a deal had been struck with the unions in relation to a pay rise. Union leaders denied knowledge of the deal saying the protest on Monday was to force the Prime Minister to meet them to discuss a way forward for the economy.
Kerrie Simmonds
During a debate in Parliament on Tuesday, Member of Parliament for St James Central Kerrie Symmonds, said unions and the private sector marched Monday because of “the tardy response of the Prime Minister to their entreaties for further urgent consultations to discuss the debilitating and oppressive effects of the fiscal and economic policies of the Government.”
At the end of Monday’s march, President of the Barbados Union of Teachers (BUT) Pedro Shepherd Monday said his union wanted to “bring this Government to its knees” to force the administration to the negotiating table.
