PLP CHAIRMAN ON DISMISSALS FROM THE PUBLIC SERVICE
Statement from Office Of The Chairman of the Progressive Liberal Party
For Immediate Release
Comment On Labour Dismissals In The Country
1 November 2017
The PLP raises a concern about the alarming number of reports of dismissals or threats of dismissals of workers in the country.
Little by little, the FNM government is chipping away at the labour force in the Government and sending people home to collect unemployment benefits or social assistance. That is their modus operandi in the public service and the private sector appears to be following suit. There is no job security in the country. The FNM is cruel and unjust. They are making a huge mistake.
In the last weeks we have heard chilling reports that as many as 1700 people will have to be laid off from the public service; the Minister of Labour has some explaining to do on this. Eighteen workers have been fired from the Gaming Board. Two people were recently dismissed from the Foreign Service adding to the half dozen already dismissed from there. Workers with contracts in the public service who are connected with the PLP are being laid off with one month’s notice.
Further, this past August at least 27 employees of the Ministry of Tourism were released. Another fifteen people were recently fired from the Bahamas Agriculture and Industrial Corporation (BAIC). Twenty-one employees at the National Insurance Board (NIB) were terminated in June of this year. In recent months, the National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA) has let go at least 42 people as the government claims it is proceeding with National Health Insurance (NHI), an expansion of health care services.
Again, being PLP appears to be their only sin.
In the private sector, we now learn that BTC has told it’s so called independent contractors to sign or be dismissed. This is a consequence of course of the bad decision of the FNM government in its previous term in office to sell BTC at a fire sale price to those who did not have the best interest of the Bahamian people at heart. Down in Matthew Town, Inagua people are in an uproar because a popular employee at a senior level was dismissed. The citizens there are calling for immigration to intervene.
This brief story points to a grave situation where the FNM through its mean-spirited and regressive governmental economic policies have set in train a death spiral attack on workers in the country.
The PLP will be meeting with the labour movement to see how we can help.
End