Cooper’s Boss Responds: Employment Practices
A.S. Cooper & Sons Managing Director, Somers Cooper responded to comments made by Bermuda Industrial Union boss, Chris Furbert on last night’s [Feb 2] evening news.
Mr. Cooper said “A.S. Cooper’s unfortunately had to temporarily lay off one full-time sales assistant during the winter months and did so complying fully with the Employment Act. Since that time we have advertised 2 vacant positions. One was for a manager/buyer and the other was for a seasonal position which starts on April 1st. The employee Mr. Furbert was referring to is due back to work in mid March.”
“Mr. Furbert was not fully informed and it was misleading to use A.S. Cooper’s as an example of an employer using poor employment practices. Despite being caught in the crunch of this extended economic downturn we still do everything “by the book” and have done our best to be fair and keep our staff employed. It was disappointing that Mr. Furbert didn’t call the company prior to his public statement,” continued Mr Cooper.
One of the island’s well established retail businesses, A.S. Cooper & Sons was founded in 1897 by Alexander Samuel Cooper, and over 100 years later is still family-owned and run.
Damn UBP…… Did it again.
We have lost Trimingham’s. We have lost HA and E Smith’s, and we know for certain that a company such as AS Cooper’s must be having a very, very hard time in this harsh economic climate. As a major employer of Bermudians it beholds Somers Cooper to do everything possible to keep his company afloat, even if it means temporary lay-offs and cut backs on hours. Make no mistake we will ALL lose if AS Cooper’s goes down. I have a lot of respect for Chris Furbert, but even he has to realize that we are fighting for our survival and our unions need to be flexible or their members will find themselves without ANY work.
Is anyone else watching the chickens coming home to roost?
For decades the unions, the Governments, includinng UBP, have been warned of the consequences of above inflation pay raises, poor productivity & bad attitude towards work.
Many thought that the magic that was the Bermuda economy could never be destroyed. They are getting a nasty surprised in 2011.
Would the last person to leave Bermuda please turn off the lights….
Don’t you just hate it when people make public accusations without checking the facts?
So I walked by the new government building site 2 days ago. Amazing stuff. There were two white foreigners outside mixing something in a bucket; a white local guy who was most likely installing something because he looked busy; inside I could see some more white guys installing stuff, probably foreign (I could hear the 2 outside talking in a foreign language) and yes there were 3 black Bermudian guys on the site I could see: 2 were talking on their cell phones and one was leaning up against a car talking to his ace girl. If I had had a cell phone on me I would have filmed it all and uploaded it to Youtube. Our work practices are a joke -and this from our very own labour government of which Mr. Furbert is a member. Yeah, business not as usual. So true.
Nice generalization Joe…..So when I see some local and foreign white / portuguese worker(s) ‘skiving off’ and some do, should I make the generalization that it’s a white work ethic.. wake up my friend, it has been my experience that no one race has a monopoly on laziness!!
Now on to you President Chris Furbert— can you and the BIU wake up from your 12 year slumber!!!!
You have all but gone away under this PLP government and it shows. I get that it’s a black thing but in my world there is a very thin line between racism and elitism. You guys had no problem fighting the good fight when we where ruled by those fair skinned fellas but you have given the PLP (oops that would be you as well, wouldn’t it) a free ride. So I ask you, Ottie and George to explain to us common folk, what happened, ’cause’ you’ve been very quiet for over a decade now and guess what, us common folk still need you!