Former President of the Bahamas Public Service Union and former Director of Labour John Pinder is set to run for the position of union president again.
Pinder held a press conference along with members of his We Care team. He said, “the things that they were used to the expect for us as a team to reinstate those things. For example, we normally negotiate contracts, we don’t allow the employer to give us a contract, we negotiate contracts and we address issues and concerns that our members have. So we have put together, after consultation with the members, a ten point plan that we believe we are able to reach and execute our first term in office.”
Pinder says two issues he plans to address are members who reach the maximum on their salary scale and testing agency shops. “Agency shops speaks to those 11,000 persons in the public service that benefit from our negotiations paying us at least 90% of the dues and we believe that will certainly put us in a better position financially. We want the government to consider open salary scales so when a person reach the max of the salary scale, once they are getting above average or outstanding performance, whatever that criteria is to receive your increment they will continue to get increments and when their promotion comes around, they will just be slotted in to where they ought to be on the salary scale but the government will not have to go trying to find retroactive pay for them,’ he said.
Pinder says his team knows what it takes to get the union back to where it ought to be.
