THE NATIONAL UNION of Public Workers is accusing the Barbados Investment and Development Corporation (BIDC) of age discrimination after the entity recently severed 13 workers over the age of 60.
As such, senior members of the union alongside the workers, picketed the BIDC’s Princess Alice Highway offices this morning for around an hour. Acting deputy general secretary Delcia Burke explained their position.
“The NUPW wrote to the BIDC advising them it was against the law to terminate persons before they reached the voluntary retirement age unless those persons wanted to leave. We requested a meeting with the BIDC this morning at 10 a.m and they agreed but yesterday evening, workers were called and given termination letters.
“We believe if you are supposed to be negotiating, you would be doing so in good faith. If they were going to meet with us to discuss pending terminations, [then those letters should not have been sent] so [we] determined we would not meet with BIDC but instead picket to bring awareness to what happened,” she said.
The union wrote a letter to BIDC demanding the entity reconsider the termination letters by noon tomorrow. (CA)
