Potential foreign investors may be running scared because of what they see as the over-involvement of trade unions in businesses in Barbados.
This is the view of managing director and chief executive officer of the Insurance Corporation of Barbados Ltd (ICBL), Ingrid Innes, who said that even ICBL, which is owned by BF&M Limited of Bermuda, was hesitant to expand locally.
“We are looking to expand in Barbados but one of the things we’re afraid of is the involvement of the union to a certain extent and their participation in wanting to manage business for you,” she said yesterday.
Innes was speaking at the company’s Roebuck Street headquarters following a presentation to staff by Central Bank Governor Dr DeLisle Worrell on The Barbadian Economy: Challenges and Opportunities.
“In any situation you can’t stop the employees from forming a union but a lot of foreign investors are afraid of that because they see that not as something that’s good that can enable the company to grow. They automatically have that sense that it’s not good,” she said. (NB)
