With a call to workers to “flex your muscles and get ready to defend your rights”, a 38-year-old mother of one child formally took over yesterday as the first female general secretary in the history of Barbados’ biggest trade union.
After getting a rousing welcome at the 73rd Annual Delegates’ Conference of the Barbados Workers’ Union (BWU), new general secretary Toni Moore wasted no time in reminding employees that globally labour was under severe pressure from the economic downturn and efforts by employers to roll back some of the gains workers had achieved.
“Comrades, as I take up this challenge of leadership, I urge you also to flex your muscles and get ready to defend your rights,” she told the gathering at the union’s Harmony Hall, St Michael complex.
“If ever there was a time that we needed to unite, it is now. If we don’t do this now, we run the risk of reflecting in our sunset years, telling our children and children’s children what it was once like in Barbados when we had rights.”
She complained that some employers were eroding the objectives of the Employment Rights Act. “We are witnessing far too many attempts by employers to reduce the provisions of existing collective agreements to meet the bare minimum requirements of this particular piece of legislation, thereby undermining the intent of the law,” she charged. (TY)
