Workers march up East Street, once named Farm Road on Labour Day this past Friday. The Minister of Labour, Dion Foulkes (inset) could not be found walking with the workers of the country.
Nassau, Bahamas – Every year since the high-pitched voice of Sir Randol Fawkes quieted, labour in The Bahamas have slipped into a coma, and the powers that be have done everything in their power to keep it in that state. Year after year Bahamians see the power they once held slip out of their hands and given to back to others. Employers continue to inflict harm on the Bahamian workers. An added list of foreign labours, mass firings every year continue to climb whilst youthful educated young Bahamians returning home find no place for them in the workplace.
We at Bahamas Press are asking the simple question, who is protecting labour in this country now Sir Randol has left us? Look around us and you will find that whilst Bahamians are marching in the street, perspiring in the heat, every foreign national in the world is on the job. Just look around us from the restaurants to hotels to offshore banks, right to the gates of the Princess Margaret Hospital, foreign nationals today in this modern Bahamas are running all the jobs in this country. Should not a voice like that of Sir Randol be louden over this?
Even communist Cuba has seen the need to train their own to take up their rightful place in their own country. But not in The Bahamas, we have done the opposite and to our lost we march with silent voices yet another year.
Who is protecting the voice of labour in this Bahamas since Sir Randol left us? Let us take a further look at the mass firings that have occurred in the country since the last Labour Day parade. The Ingraham government, in their MASS FIRING exercise of public servants, has set a precedent in this country, one that is now following into the private sector. Who will hear the voices of the innocent in The Bahamas when:
• Government believes it has the right to TERMINATE BAHAMIANS, 1,200 workers in the public service over the past year.
• The media watchdogs of society agrees and says it is OK to TERMINATE BAHAMIANS!
• The PUBIC SERVICE UNION boss in the person of John Pinder says it is OK to TERMINATE BAHAMIANS, without seeing a solution or standing up for even a disabled woman who was dismissed out of the government service.
What are we telling our children? What are we saying to the hundreds of young Bahamians whom cannot find a JOB or an EAR to hear their needs for a job in this country? No wonder why so many of our sons and daughters refuse to return home after their training abroad. The government is quickly churning The Bahamas into a heartless culture for only the GREEDY as they FORGET THE NEEDY!
The cancellation of million of dollars in development projects have resulted in job losses for carpenters, masons, painters and plumbers across the country. But again, who is speaking up for those workers since the last Labour Day? Like NAZI generals the government now famous ‘Colour RED’ slogan have become ‘pink slips’ and termination letters on a once hopeful public – who stood at the ‘pearly gates’ of developments and employment – but now peek through dark clouds of high gas prices, electricity bills and high food prices. Turning crippled with dipping salaries and long slave like working hours. Now Bahamians suddenly have found their hands and ankles tied, in a thunderous dark cloud of despair and uncertainly, just one year since the last Labour Day parade.
Atlantis Harbourside workers have no agreement with their union, Barcadi workers sent home and now have no job. Some fifty Pioneer Shipping workers also sent home, some after working almost 20 years at the facility, were not given a dime! Who is protecting labour in this country since Sir Randol left us?
And then there are those people, ‘THE WUTLESS MEDIA’ in The Bahamas who suppose to protect workers, but are guilty of the same CRIME committed by lawless employers in The Bahamas. They as well hire illegal writers and fire Bahamian writers.
Therefore we ask the same question we began with, who is protecting labour in this country since Sir Randol Fawkes left us? And so we march to a land of nowhere walking as a weaker people. Slower we pace, as the rights of workers across The Bahamas are slipped away right before our eyes. Who would speak for us, who will fight for us now that Sir Randol has left us?
