Five Videos: BTUC Members Gather, Speeches

January 27, 2015

Huge crowds gathered for meeting called by the Bermuda Trade Union Congress [BTUC] yesterday [Jan 26], with the dispute centered around furlough days for government workers.

The meeting was called following the a letter being sent from the Ministry of Finance to BTUC 1st Vice President Chris Furbert on Friday [Jan 23] in which the government asked the BTUC to “reconsider your position with regard to continuation of the furlough.”

The meeting, which began at 10.00am and lead to a march on Cabinet, saw no resolution reached; while the morning’s activities were to be followed by a meeting between the BTUC and the government at 3.00pm, government officials still had not arrived to the meeting by 5.00pm.

BTUC-Unions-March-Bermuda-January-26-2015-3657

Premier Michael Dunkley later apologized to the BTUC for the circumstances surrounding the delayed meeting, while the BTUC called for another meeting this morning [Jan 27] at 9.00am, leading to the closure of all public schools, with bus and ferry services suspended as of 8.30am.

In response to the planned second membership meeting, Premier Dunkley “urged public sector workers to allow the Government negotiating team and the union leadership to meet before participating in another general membership meeting.”

For our live blog on the Govt/Union events click here, and for all our coverage of the matter click here.

A quick look at the massive crowds who gathered for the BTUC meeting on Monday

14-minute video of Union leaders and the Premier addressing the crowds at Cabinet Grounds on Monday

Full 40 minute video of Union leaders addressing the crowd at Union Square on Monday

BPSU President Jason Hayward explaining why the BTUC called for another meeting today

The original press conference on Friday to call the first BTUC meeting

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Comments (7)

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  1. Mark says:

    Its the 1980′s early 90′s all over again!
    The Privileged vs the underprivileged — its going to get real testing from here.—– a bumpy ride all the way to the next
    election.
    If I had to use my imagination ‘ I would swear that the Sons and Daughters of the privileged have returned to
    for fill the promise of making sure that the underprivileged stay underprivileged – all this equals to unrest.- a bad plan
    for the running Politcal Party.

    ‘A Mens Choices determines his destiny’

    • jt says:

      You have a good imagination.

    • JD says:

      “Privileged vs underprivileged”. That’s a new one for today. I’ll add it to the list of confrontations that the PLP puppet masters are manufacturing to hide their culpability for this current mess.

      So far I think we have private vs public sector, workers vs top civil servants, the Union vs the Cabinet and their “technical advisors”, and of course the usual battle of the races (yawn).

      Its always better to manufacture a confrontation to hide behind than to admit that you made a mistake and simply hired too many people to work for government without thinking how you were going to pay for it.

  2. Dontworryboutathing says:

    When the PLP won the election in 1998, I remember an employee at one of the hotels telling me, “Now its our turn”. That same person is still working in that hotel, they are no better off today as they were the whole time the PLP were in power. I believe they thought their pockets would all of a sudden be full of money.

  3. fedup says:

    privileged = union members
    under privileged = private sector employees

  4. BTCHECKER says:

    Referance to another emotional time whic has nothing to do with today – Check

    Reference this is rich vs poor – Check

    imply this is some consipracy to keep “poor” down – Check

    Ignore all facts and statistics in respect of the economy – Check

    Ignore all facts in respect of how we got into this mess – Check

    Encourage a position that will in fact be worse for the underpriviledged – Check

    I.e. make it worse for the very people that need help – Check

    Make it easier for the rich to actually look down on workers and entrench the position even further – Check

    Well done all. win

  5. Debbie says:

    THEY WILL PUT A BAND-AID ON IT BY 2017 AMERICAS CUP!!
    I AM HAPPY TO SEE SO MANY PEOPLE OUT I JUST HOPE THEY STAY ACTIVE AND STRONG IN WHAT THEY BELIEVE TO BE RIGHT & FAIR THING!
    POWER ROCKS!!!