The Insurance Corporation of Barbados Ltd (ICBL) has insisted it is not anti-union and that trade unions were important in helping businesses achieve a needed improvement in productivity.
Managing director and chief executive officer Ingrid Innes sought to set the record straight yesterday after general secretary of the Barbados Workers’ Union (BWU), Sir Roy Trotman, took issue with her contention last week that potential foreign investors might be hesitant to bring their money here because they saw unions as a problem.
Innes told the SUNDAY SUN she believed the union’s role was to look out for the interests of its members and would therefore find it “intolerable” for staff to be dissuaded from joining the union.
“Every employee is free to make their own choice – without reprisal,” she said, adding that ICBL and BWU, which represents workers there, had a good relationship.
However, she was insistent that unions should concern themselves with the welfare of their members and not in telling management how to run the businesses. (DP)
