Diamonds International: Who’s Telling The Truth?

Caswell Franklyn, Head of Unity Workers Union

First let me state that I hold no brief for either Sir Roy Trotman, General Secretary of the Barbados Workers Union, or Mr. Jacob Hassid, the owner of Diamonds International. I will therefore attempt to put the recent events involving Diamonds International in perspective in an unbiased way.

During a speech on May Day 2012, Sir Roy Trotman reported that twenty workers were dismissed by Diamonds International because they held a meeting to form a bargaining unit at their workplace. If that were so I could understand Sir Roy’s anger. What I don’t understand is why a person of such eminence would stoop to using a racial slur to make a point. Not only is he the leader of this country’s largest union: he is an honourable member of the Senate. His behaviour would have brought discredit to both bodies. Additionally, it should be abhorred that someone who has received one of Barbados’ highest honours would behave in this manner. He is articulate enough to deliver of himself without offending all right-thinking people in this country.

Having brought his union into disrepute, the Executive Council should disassociate itself from those remarks, and censure him at the very least for his conduct which he made worse by saying that he has nothing to apologise for, as reported in the Nation of May 4, 2012. Also he serves as an independent senator at the pleasure of the Governor-General, who should express his displeasure by declaring Sir Roy’s seat vacant. As a person who was knighted, he is expected to set a positive example: he has fallen way short of that example for which he should be converted back to plain old Leroy Trotman.

I have been around the trade union movement long enough to have some serious doubts about the denials emanating from the Barbados Chamber of Commerce and Industry and Diamonds International. I have been an active trade unionist since 1982, and in all those years I have never seen workers join a union en masse because they were being well treated by the employer. I have no doubt that the statements issued by both BCCI and Diamonds International were merely a public relations exercise to cover the malpractices in that business that have angered the workers to the point where they would seek union representation.

My abhorrence of Sir Roy’s behaviour aside; I give no credence to the explanation given by Diamonds International for those dismissals. In order to convince me, I would have expected the statement to say that after we have given those displaced workers a number of warnings about their performance; there was no improvement over time; and we were force to terminate their contracts. Anything short of that I would tend to believe Sir Roy.

Diamonds International I do not believe you. It is a crime in Barbados, punishable by a fine or imprisonment or both, to dismiss a worker for joining or proposing to join a trade union.