BTUC Release Minutes: Working Group Meeting
The Bermuda Trade Union Congress [BTUC] released the minutes of the meeting held on January 28, 2015, saying that, “In our press statement of January 30, 2015, the BTUC shared with the people of Bermuda a summary of the cost saving initiatives that were discussed within the “Budget Reduction Working Group”.
“At the time of our press release, the BTUC had not received the minutes of the meeting held on January 28, 2015. The BTUC called on Government to release the minutes and the tape of the meeting to the public which would have supported the BTUC’s position.
“The BTUC finally received the requested minutes four months after the meeting was held on May 26, 2015, after making a request through the courts. The minutes confirm that:
- A sufficient amount of cost saving was reached on the night of January 28, 2015, contrary to the Government’s assertion; and
- It was the Cabinet who made the decision on the cuts to Financial Assistance and the suspension of the Annual Agriculture Exhibition, and not the BTUC as has been stated.
“The BTUC is also extremely concerned that there is a reference to the meeting held on January 28, 2015 contained in the injunction served on the BTUC in March 2015, however the minutes supplied consisted of only one page, while the actual minutes in question actually consist of seven typewritten pages.”
The minutes follow below [PDF here]:
Well well well…what have we here? did the government mislead the people?
Of course they did
No idea what you two are reading.
Its looks like the government did mislead the people. If one reads carefully without twisting facts. The government came to the table with a Pre-list of items discussed and agreed upon within their Caucus of items that they were going to cut. These items were not up for discussion with the Working Group. They were not on the table for debate. The Government had already agreed that they will be cut. As a result there was no need or requirement for the BTUC to object to those items.
-The Government had decided to reduce Financial Assistance by $50 Million
- The Government had decided to reduce travel by 1 Million
- The Government would suspend the Agricultural Exhibition for 1 year
_ the Government had decided on Consolidation of schools savings
The above items were not up for discussion, in other words government was not willing to negotiate on these item. However discussion would be welcome on the following items only: Uniform, Unions, GEHI, superannuate, and overtime.
At the end of the meeting it was indicated that Target Savings Amount had been reached, which the government later deny. That is the real issue here of mis-leading the public by the government.
Great the Minutes are Released, sad it had to be done via the Courts. Transparency at work for you !!
Actually they were times put there in response to the BTUC not allowing for any sort of furlough days, they were put there to disclose the ramifications of BTUC’s choice about furlough days. You know, the furlough days the union leaderships choose to unilaterally decide for their members to not explore, the furlough days the union leaderships wouldn’t let their members discuss or vote on, the furlough days the unions leaderships unilaterally decided to take their membership into illegal industrial action, saying they were striking to prevent the government from extending, when it wasn’t within the government’s power to do so anyway.
Interesting how the union held a press conference immediately after the meeting to say savings had been reached and all was said and done, when the minutes show that the while they had agreed upon the measures to be implemented, those measures could only be proven effective once implemented and measured to real world values for further determinations.
Furlough days were decided by the members not to continue after the members saw that the Government was crying about no money and then pull $77 Million out of their @$$ for a sailboat race and not accounting for what the savings of the Furlough days went toward, and further more creating positions like the C.E.O of B.T.A. and paying him $1000,00 a day and you want people making $800 a week to take a further cut!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
WTF
Just as long as they keep their 6 weeks vacation and 14 weeks sick leave, plus carry over any unused “sick” days. Don’t want those people having to work more than half a year, do we.
@ Zevon, those benefits are just a portion of retribution for working 400 years FREE labor.
Typical stupid racist answer.
I thought you lot wanted to forget the past any time anyone brings up the sh!t that the PLP did.
Anyway, the rest of us idiot taxpayers are not interested is paying government employees to sit around pretending to be ‘sick’ for half the year.
Are you advocating that all the ‘non-black’ members of the civil service should have their benefits rolled back?
Violins playing Mockyou..
Hahahahaha dude u have prob never done an honest days work in your entire life! Stop ya noise bie! I guess only black people are unionized hahaha. Lmfao !! Now i need a drink hahahaha
No, but only Black people are on the frontline when we want change.
As a matter of fact foreign blue collar workers who are unionized in their home countries U.S.A, Canada and England, for some reason are anti-union when they arrive in Bermuda, HMMMMM
Could it be because the unions here are completely ridiculous?
Drive a ferry drunk and crash it, get fired? Shut de island dawn! Crash a bus, fail the drug test, get fired? Oppression, shut de island dawn!
actually i am a civil servant. my sick days do not carry over. i used 3 last year
Well, you prove the 14 weeks sick are unnnecessary.
Not all public employees are civil servants. BIU public employees carry over, up to 100 days a year. That’s 20 weeks “sick”. Plus 6.5 weeks vacation.
There are numerous civil service depts where the average taken is 25+ days “sick” a year, every year, for every employee. That’s days taken. Every employee. Ridiculous.
Ahh, Government agreed.
Mokingjerk speaks….good, now I know what to think…
Glad I can be of some assistance, now you have an idea of the real deal.
Not even close to the “real deal” dummy
Like the commercial say’s, you can learn from a dummy.
LMFAO
There hasn’t been $77m put aside, this year was only about $11m, but I think it was less. They are also expecting to cover as much of the AC35 money to spent with sponsorship. Now while it is not expected that government will coup all it will be putting in, the economy is expected to pull in $250m+, course with your attitude, you probably won’t see any of that and that will only be your fault.
As for the BTA CEO salary, that isn’t paid from under the government payroll, that comes out of the BTA monies, which is allocated to by the tourism budget, an allocation that has decreased over last year and so long as the BTA can produce results while working with less. So cutting his salary would do nothing to decrease government payroll expense. In the last 6 months we have already seen them actively employing multiple stategies for both short and long term targets for increasing our tourism, more activity than in the last 20 years. Finally, his salary is still less than what was wasted on the Faith Based Tourism salary for a friend.
@ Build a Better Bermuda. Thank Christ someone was able to and has expressed the financial pros and cons in layman terms.(What was that advert. from years gone by, “It’s so easy when you use less toil”)
Well SpongeBob came up with that number.
Those WERE up for discussion. They were the first thing up for discussion. They were the “Considerations for additional savings”, Acoording to the minutes. Hayward started to ask about the schools consolidation but “withdrew the question” because he didn’t want to get “laboured with the details”.
So Hayward couldn’t be bothered to discuss it, basically.
Hayward then said the Agricultural Exhibition is “not our fight”. In other words, no union members involved, so why bother.
So they “ticked” the things that affected poor people and scool kids.
Interestingly, they did not “tick” the item that affected union members – spouses premiums and PSSF contributions. Oh no. Those items weren’t ” ticked”.
Government got busted on this one after trying not to release the minutes and they had to go through the Courts to get them after 4 months.
LMFAO
Nah, the BTuc is busted. We can how they threw kids and poor people under the bus.
No they didn’t.
If you look at the January 29 2015 press conference the Min. of Finance stated that the Government tabled their options and the BTUC did not object. This was highlighted in the minutes above.
http://bernews.com/2015/01/premier-spending-targets-reached/
The actual press release stated that the Unions agreed to OUR proposed reductions. Nowhere does it say that the BTUC proposed these cuts. So it appears that the BTUC is misleading and not for the first time in this whole process. The second instance is their claim to meet the required target in which they didn’t. Instead they use the terminology ‘substantial savings.’
On top of that the cost reduction decisions noted is a direct result of the BTUC 1) not agreeing to furlough days for its members and 2) failing to live up the required costs savings as per the Terms of Reference agreed upon by both parties. They also refused a 1% increase in member pension contributions and brief elimination of overtime payment. Therefore, without these cost savings the next step was to cut in other areas (like the ones mentioned) to make up the difference. The BTUC saw the alternatives proposed and did not disagree or object to these. The only ones they objected to are the ones that affected their members.
Anyways, let’s give examples of ”misleading the people:’
1- David Burt claiming that CIBC is a shareholder of Aecon
2- BIU stating that there was no negotations with the regarding the closure of the Paget post office, when in actuality they couldn’t be bothered to show up to the meeting. Great representation for the dues that were recently raised by the BIU.
3- the above claim by the BTUC that ‘sufficient savings’ were found when in reality they failed to achieve the targets agreed upon by the BTUC and the Government.
I could go on if you would like.
It seems some are twisting the trew. No these were cuts that the government had already agreed upon. From what I read above it was clear the Cabinet who had made the decision on the cuts to Financial Assistance and the suspension of the Annual Agriculture Exhibition, and not the BTUC as has been stated previous by the government. trew it had nothing to do with the BTUC, and therefore no vote or discussion was required. The government came to the table with these cuts already set.
Betty, stop fabricating stories to bash this govt. We know you only see green in terms of party and money. Your selfish propaganda posts are not helping Bermudians, but hurting them.
@ Politricks and Hmmm are you gonna believe a press release or the ACTUAL minutes of the meeting in which the BTUC had to go through Court to retrieve them after 4 months.
TIC TOC
Hardly any time pieces make a Tick Tock sound now you moron.
According to the minutes, the BTUC “ticked” financial assistance cuts, schools cuts, travel cuts and ag exhibition, with no discussion. In other words, they agreed them as soon as they heard them.
It is disingenuous to have later pretended to be “concerned” and ” outraged” about them. Tweed, Furbert, Hayward, were all fine with those as a way of cutting costs. None of those items, of course, would cost a union member a dime. They were just throwing children and poor people under the bus, in order to make sure their own interests were protected.
NO need for the BTUC to object, as those items were already set by the Government, and they were not up for discussion. Government had made the decision to cut such items before the Working Group met. There were only certain items put on the table for debate. The real findings reveal that the Target savings had been reached by the Working Group, whereby government indicated it was not.
Not according to the minutes. The BTUC could have discussed those items longer, or objected, but deliberately didn’t do that. They “ticked” them all, i.e. Agreed them. They threw children and poor people under the bus, for their own self-interest. .
Some times I wonder if they realize these things with the assupmtion that people will either not fully read them for themselves, or won’t understand what is actually said. Much like their vaunted CCC/Aecon emails (and yes I know they were from the PC and not technically the BTUC, but is there really a difference at this stage of the PLP’s misinformation/misdirection agenda for electioneering) when properly read, they actually support the Government. Yes, the government did table the financial aid and Ag Show cut, but they were only being considered as a result of the BTUC’s rejection to furlough days. It was within the BTUC’s ability to prevent these cuts, but they clearly accepted them, in fact they didn’t even bother to try and take any furlough days options to their membership for discussion or vote at any time; unilaterally deciding for their membership to reject any possible furlough day option and calling for an illegal industrial action against something the government couldn’t even enforce on them.
Those 3 days in January will stand as a testament to a labour leadership arrogance, misinformation and disrespect to labour laws, contracts and labour members. Not as a triumph of organized labour in a mature and advancing society. This latest chapter only stand to continue that legacy
The BTUC/Govt did not achieve the agreed upon targets/objectives in the initial cost saving measures (which the BPSU President even said couldn’t be reached without furlough days) nor did they find the additional $22mn as agreed for during the January 28 2015 meeting.
In section 4.23 of the attached document it is noted that ‘all were reminded that all potential savings would have to be stress tested to prove or disprove them.’
Despite this fact in section 4.3 the BTUC, without having confirmed these ‘substantial savings,’ still stated that they would hold an immediate press conference to state that furlough days were off the table despite the figures not even being confirmed. This contradicted Dr. Binns request to hold off until the numbers can be verified.
So without the furlough day other options had to be reduced to assist in meeting or coming near the savings target. Unfortunately, the civil service now consumes nearly 50% of total annual Govt expenditure.
If you add in the debt servicing costs and other operating costs (i.e. rent, insurance, vehicles, gas, pens, paper, etc.) immediately over 60% of Govt expenditure (not revenue, which is much less) is consumed leaving little for social programs, infrastructure developments and other intiaitives. And one must remember that our Govt expenditure is still roughly $300mn higher than income. It is simply unsustainable. US towns with twice or three times of the Bermuda population are declaring bankruptcy with much smaller annual deficits and underfunded pensions
Therefore, if the Govt cannot cut back on its largest expense (i.e. civil service) then it must procure the savings from other areas such as grants and contributions, social programs and infrastructure projects.
Let me say that this is not the fault of the civil service employees one bit. They didn’t hire themselves. That is the fault of Govt administrations hiring people just for the sake of hiring. And I feel for the civil servants that are now caught up in all this mess. But it is a mess whether you want to believe it or not.
Cutting jobs is not the answer right now, until the private sector picks up again. Furlough days were the best option in a whole raft of bad options. But unfortunately they did not
No matter what political Party is in power the financial reality will stay the same.
It is true that no matter what party in in power, our financial reality would be the same, the difference is in their response. We’re it to the PLP, they have shown and continue to show that they support a policy of continued borrowing to try and run a government, with few to no ideas how to actually finance the borrowing and spending. They had great ideas for social spending, but those ideas inevitably fall to failure if you can’t also come up with reasonable and sustainable means to finance them, this is the PLP’s failing. While I would like to see the OBA take a more active action to diversifying our economy, I understand that they are focusing on modernizing, improving and expanding our IB base up to measures that will make us competitive again. They have said this is their plan, they have made this clear to those that will listen. They are progressing with developing a new gaming industry, but with any new industry, you must make sure you develop it right, legislate it right, otherwise you end up with more of a mess. You cannot create a new industry into you economy overnight, no matter how much the PLP try to simplifiy it to sell this notion for votes.
How does anything get done in a meeting with 27 attendees?
Mutual respect and a good Chair, along with observing basic meeting etiquette (likely using Robert’s Rules).
You saying that Mr Hayward played by those rules? Not they way I read that. More sounded like a polite way of saying that he is a total bully and blow hard. IMHO
I’m answering the question of how one would hold a meeting with 27 attendees. As I was not one of the attendees, I cannot say one way or another who or who did not play by such rules.
Wouldn’t the btuc failing to show up at 11.00pm be in contravention of the rules?
Nothing much did…relative to the budget objective.
Here we go again with another conspiracy theory to generate drama over something that’s now six months old. Don’t you ever get sick of throwing your toys out of the crib?
Another storm in a teacup by the Reverand and his sheeple.
Amazing.
Just scroll down to the bottom…
Mr Ball Jr. suggested the govt team take a caucus and discuss with their principles
Govt team took caucus at 10.33pm
They returned at 11pm and nobody from the BTUC was present
Tells the whole story
Ya they got tired of the BS.
The BTUC couldn’t be bothered to go back and keep discussing anything. No interest in discussing the school or Ag Show issues. They’d already “ticked” those items.
That sets out the whole People/PLP/BTUC/BIU agenda. Basically, they are full of ****!
Having no political ties to either Party; I am find a steady increase of this constant fear-mongering and misinformation tiresome and not helpful to Bermuda. It achieves NOTHING but cause division. At first it was good looking out, until now where, time and time again we see lack of proof backing the repeated conspiracy theories. We have been having this from what I now believe is a combined Opposition of PLP/PC/BIU/BTUC.
I’m pretty much at a point now that I ignore these claims; because as many issues before this, like the BAC claim from Mr. Brown (has he apologized yet?)it’s ALL cheap politics.
“All propaganda has to be popular and has to accommodate itself to the comprehension of the least intelligent of those whom it seeks to reach.”
Read the fine print people.
SMH
As having no political ties I was waiting for you to point out something that the U.B.P/oba is suspect of doing.
No political ties eh.
“@ Zevon, those benefits are just a portion of retribution for working 400 years FREE labor.”
Need I add more of your quotes that paint YOU for what you are?
I’m not here to convince you or anybody else on anything; other than what is becoming clearly apparent of the COMBINED Opposition.
You Sir/Madame are not even worth having a conversation (notice I did not say argument) with.
Personally I think bloggers like you are put here by opposite political parties to irritate the sound thinking individuals and move them to disliking the party you represent (and yes, you constantly show just who you represent).
Did you get that or do I need to break it down for you?
As stated above; add Mockingjay to the list of negatives that are not helping Bermuda.
“It is not truth that matters, but victory.”
This story is a joke. The group that marched up and down upsetting the country now offers up its minutes five months later!! Does it take that long to rewrite and retell the story?? Is this what we should accept? No, all Bermuda should laugh at this disgraceful attempt to rewrite history.
The minutes came from the Govt who were unwilling to release the truth to the public…….. until forced to.
it was the government that caused the delay
And Bro Furbert couldn’t even be bothered to sign the minutes, relying on a minion instead.
If You choose not to hold Your party accountable, whether it is OBA or PLP, when they are doing wrong, YOU ARE THE PROBLEM!!!
YOU CAN NOT COST CUT YOUR WAY TO SUCCESS!!! Cuts lead to More Cuts, which will lead to More Cuts. Some say that is the OBA’s plan anyway, to get rid of the civil servants and privatize the departments
You have to walk a fine line when handling the public and the public purse. There has to be a balance.
I really wish we could have a “Better Bermuda, for All Bermudians”
The P.L.P. did a marvelous job of handling the “publics purse”? Sure you’re right? So those of you who write letters about the way the O.B.A. are doing the job they’d been voted in to do I suggest when come time let your desires be known by voting for whichever party you feel more comfortable leading you…There is far too much b/s going on that affect everyone more than some want to believe. Thank god for small/large blessing…
Why are there 20 representatives for the BTUC?
It’s another example of, “the fox watching the chickens”
Have you ever seen a union that doesn’t want a job over-manned?
Wondered the same thing reading last night; but I think it equates roughly to the same number of representatives from each group i.e. PSG/Government of Bermuda.
Its just that the BTUC is a combination of many Union Groups, BIU/BPSA/Teacher/etc, and each group has their representatives so the combined unions group BTUC would have a larger group of representative.
Oh, and also the Reverend to open procedures with a prayer. Observer; ya right.
SMH