A local trade union leader is demanding the resignation of Chief Labour Officer Victor Felix over an industrial relations dispute involving a Cabinet minister.

Head of the Unity Trade Union Senator Caswell Franklyn is accusing Felix of failing to refer to the Employment Rights Tribunal, a complaint of unfair dismissal he made to him since last year on behalf of a client.

Franklyn, an Opposition Senator, told Barbados TODAY this morning that he had filed the complaint sometime in June last year claiming that his client, who had been employed by the Minister when he was in private practice, was fired without receiving pay owed to her, after her former boss was sworn into office following the May 24 General Elections.

“Felix has failed to do his job. He should go,” insisted the outspoken legislator.

He disclosed that he will also be making a complaint to Minister of Labour and Social Partnership Colin Jordan, regarding the conduct of the Chief Labour Officer.

Not only that, Franklyn told Barbados TODAY his client was planning to take Felix to court, but that the only thing standing in her way was a lack of funds to hire a lawyer.

However, in his defence, the Chief Labour Officer was adamant he had done nothing wrong in the handling of the complaint by Franklyn and his client.

“I am doing the work of the Labour Department in the best manner that I know how, and that I will continue to do,” Felix told Barbados TODAY this morning.

Pressed to specify if he had refused to refer the matter to the Employment Rights Tribunal, he replied:”Needless to say, there are matters before the Chief Labour Officer; and we continue to deal with them, using the process we have been using within the labour department to deal with matters.”

Asked to state categorically whether or not he had refused to refer the complaint, Felix stuck to his story.

“I would say that we are following the process.”

When reminded that the case was filed since last year, his response was: “Well, we are following the process. We have a procedure for dealing with issues and we follow that procedure,” Felix emphasized.

But Senator Franklyn is not buying Felix’s argument and has told Barbados TODAY that the same procedure to which the Chief Labour Officer refers has been contravened by him.

He referred to Section 44 (1) of the Employment Rights Act which states: “Where the Chief Labour Officer is unable, within 42 days of the making of a complaint, except in extenuating circumstances, to effect settlement of the complaint under Section 43, he shall make a report to that effect to the Tribunal.”

Barbados TODAY checked the Act and also found that Section 42 (1) said that where an employee believes there is a dispute concerning infringement of any right conferred on him by the Act, he may present a complaint to the Chief Labour Officer.

And according to Section 43 (1) where the Chief Labour Officer receives a complaint under Section 42, he shall as soon as practicable enquire into the matter and process the complaint for conciliation and referral to the Tribunal.

Senator Franklyn noted that nearly a year has gone since the complaint was filed and “there are no extenuating circumstances. The Minister is not in hospital or anything like that…and still the matter has not been referred to the Tribunal. I have written him (the Minister) and he has refused to respond. There can’t be one law for a minister and another for ordinary citizens.”

When contacted, neither the Cabinet Minister implicated in the dispute nor Minister Jordan was available for comment. emmanueljoseph@barbadostoday.bb

The post CLO should go, says Franklyn appeared first on Barbados Today.

The woman at the centre of the dispute with the British national who was reprimanded and released after an alleged  bottom-slapping incident, is outraged at how the matter has been handled.

Fifty-three-year-old Charmaine Alleyne has suggested that the move by the judicial system is making her look like she was telling lies because she wanted the visitor’s money.

[caption id="attachment_300256" align="aligncenter" width="500"] Chairmaine Alleyne says she is not telling lies that she was unlawfully assaulted by British national James O’Rouke.[/caption]

James Patrick O’Rouke, 44, pleaded guilty on Monday, to unlawfully assaulting Alleyne in the Sol Top Rock Service Station, and resisting police constable Shaquille McClean in the execution of his duty on May 19.

[caption id="attachment_300055" align="aligncenter" width="500"] James Patrick O'Rouke[/caption]

The businessman who spent Monday night at HMP Dodds, was reprimanded and discharged and no conviction registered when he reappeared before Magistrate Kristie Cuffy-Sargeant yesterday.

However, Alleyne made it clear she was not happy with the outcome.

Alleyne said she was at an area close to the ATM making tea when O’Rouke walked in and started using the machine. She said he told her he thought it was possible to get US from the ATM machine and she informed him that was not the case.

“Then he turned and he said something else to me and he shoved the $50 in my bosom. I told him I don’t need his money.

“He went over to the cashier to purchase cigarettes. I then went over to the cashier too because I didn’t get my receipt for the tea so I went to look for the receipt.

“After he paid for the cigarettes, and on going through the door he slapped me on my behind. So the same time, as I was going through the door behind him a police vehicle came into the gas station.

“I went over to them, reported the matter and they went over to the taxi that [O’Rouke and his wife] was in. The police told them what happened and then his wife asked me what happened, so I told her. So then she start to quarrel with him. The police asked him to step out the car and he refused and started to put up a fight.

“I never asked him for money. I work every day for my own money,” Alleyne said.

She said she was outraged that she had not seen the CCTV footage which O’Rouke claimed cleared his name. However, she said she did see footage “from the gas station that the police showed me”.

“Now everybody is looking at me as somebody who is after somebody else’s money. That is violating my character,” she said.

Meanwhile, O’Rouke told Barbados TODAY, that the ordeal had left him feeling humiliated, embarrassed and disappointed.

Sitting next to his wife, he said he believes he should not have been treated the way he was by police and the judicial system because he did not touch his accuser Charmaine Alleyne inappropriately.

“I am very upset. Part of me wants justice; the other part of me just wants to put it behind me. Personally, I will probably just put it behind me and put it down as a bad personal experience,” O’Rouke who is from Willehall, West Midlands, England, said.

Today he walked out of the District “A” Magistrates’ Court thanking God that he was saved by the closed circuit television (CCTV) footage of the incident, which did not support the allegation of criminal assault.

Explaining why he pleaded guilty to assaulting Alleyne if he had claimed innocence, the businessman said while at the court he sought advice from a “representative”, who told him to plead guilty because the charges were misdemeanours and the punishment would be a slap on the wrist. He said he was told if he pleaded not guilty there was the possibility that he could be remanded for a lengthy time until his case was heard.

“I wasn’t sure what to do. I had no representation there. I was in the court and I was about to go onto the stand and I then thought I needed some advice and I asked a representative who was there generally. My statement was not guilty because I had seen the CCTV, the police officers had seen the CCTV and the reason I was kept in custody in Worthings Station for so long was because the lady’s statement did not correlate with the CCTV. There were a lot of discrepancies,” he said.

Asked to explain his resisting arrest by the police, he responded: “Of course I am going to resist arrest because I haven’t done anything wrong.”

Relating his side of the incident, O’Rouke said he went to the service station around 11 p.m. to get some money from the ATM and to make a purchase.

He explained that he got out of the car asked some ladies the location of the ATM and they pointed him in the direction.

“I put my card in, I pulled out $500. I assumed I was pulling out US dollars because that is what everyone charges at the resort [Sandals] and we were due to go and swim with the turtles on the glass bottom boat. So I was like, what is this?” he said.

O’Rouke said Alleyne then started “chasing him” asking him to give her some money. He said he told her his wife was in the car and asked her to leave him alone.

“She was like, ‘give me some money, come on, let’s go’. I was like, ‘take $50, leave me alone. If my wife sees me and you talking she is going to go crazy’. . . I then went to the counter and I bought some cigarettes and I walked off.

“So by the time I got literally out of the petrol station, got into the taxi, two police officers literally within 60 seconds, the door was opened, I was dragged out and I was being accused of what I don’t know,” he said.

O’Rouke claimed he was physically and verbally abused by the police officers because he resisted the arrest. He said he was hit “severely in the face” leaving his eardrum bruised and hurting. He also claimed that his wife, who was hysterical, was hit in the mouth by one of the officers. He said he was eventually taken to the police station and kept there for hours without knowing what his charges were.

anestahenry@barbadostoday.bb

The post ‘He slapped my behind’ appeared first on Barbados Today.

The days of physical intruders being the main threat to business security are fast coming to an end, a leading security firm’s executive has declared, and he has suggested that businesses here must seriously consider global realities of cybercrime and corporate espionage coming here.

The warning came from the executive vice president of G4S Corporate Risk Services, Robert Dodge, as he spoke at G4S’s Ideation Seminar at Hilton Hotel this morning.

He told the audience that given the value of information, Barbadian businesses can no longer see themselves as outside the radar of the growing threat.

“Intellectual property in all of its forms, if lost, puts your companies at risk. If that key information leaks, it can put your enterprise out of business. This is what a lot of corporations are facing and while it may not be all here today in Barbados, I can guarantee that it is coming.”

The security executive explained that quite often business people are misguided into thinking that the security threats exist on the outside and correct firewalls are all that is need to prevent hacking.

But Dodge pointed out firewall protection was insufficient to meet cybersecurity threats, which he said quite often can come from an insider, sometimes unwittingly, and that guarding against this is not a simple task.

He identified hotels as quite vulnerable, as they are treasure troves of credit card information and guests’ personal data.

The G4S executive said: “I have seen a lot of stuff at hotels around the world and physical security does a great job of keeping out problems such as the prostitution rings and so on.

“But we have found things like electronic USB devices that have been uploading ghost key logger software.

“Luckily, we found them in time because this could have taken everyone’s credit card information and absconded with them.”

Ins some cases, employees had no idea that the threat was even present, he said.

Dodge told the seminar that often physical threats are localised and may affect very few people, while on the other hand, cyber threats can have potentially devastating consequences for many people at a time.

He said: “These are the types of things we are seeing where the virtual world meets the physical world. The younger generation that is fluent with this technology is having a serious impact on corporations.

“In one’s risk assessment, one must factor in the impact that these threats could have on your business.

“In setting your security programme, one’s systems, software, and people must be all aligned towards mitigating that threat.”

The post ‘Up security game’, businesses told appeared first on Barbados Today.

If Government is to bring down the country’s soaring debt through growth, an American economist is strongly advising the Mia Mottley administration to better handle disruptive technologies.

But while many pundits advocate a complete embrace of this technology, Michigan University economics professor Dr Linda Tesar is warning Government to expect significant short-term pain in order to gain potential benefits in the long run.

Disruptive technology has significantly altered the way businesses or entire industries have traditionally functioned.

In the most recent cases, much of it driven by e-commerce, businesses have been forced to change the way they approach their operations for fear of losing market share or becoming irrelevant.

With Amazon up-ending bricks-and-mortar retailers, Uber ride-sharing changing the face of public transport and Airbnb’s online hospitality marketplace disrupting the hotel and tourism trade.

Tesar, who was the featured speaker as the Central Bank of Barbados’ 6th Distinguished Visiting Fellow, said: “The thing about disruptive technology such as Airbnb and Uber, it is great, but it is disruptive for a reason because it disrupts what is already there. This means that the only way to take advantage of disruptive technology is to be willing to upset existing businesses.

“If you bring in Uber, the taxi drivers aren’t going to be very happy. For example, when driverless truck technology comes on stream, it is going to mean layoffs for many drivers.

“What are these drivers going to do? Re-training and re-tooling are all easy things to say but not so easy in practice.”

Dr. Tesar explained that because disruptive technologies are not contained by conventional rules, it is difficult to adequately plan for it in a growth strategy.

She said: “We don’t know what it is because if we knew, we would put a label on it. So, it is very hard to create the conditions for it to grow.

“I think it is tempting to say that growth is the way out, but I think it is dangerous to say that one is going to grow themselves out of debt. While it is probably good in the long run, in the short term it is very painful.”

The economist suggested that with a high debt to GDP, Barbados only has three options if Government is to attain the goal of bringing the debt to 60 per cent of GDP by 2033: taxation, cuts in spending and growth.

She said that of the three, growth is the most desirous option, but noted that in the quest for quick growth, unmanaged disruptive technologies become a concern.

Dr Tesar said: “In bringing down the debt there is only three things to do, spend less, tax more or growth. All three of those things are going to contribute to primary surplus, so that you can have a sustainable level of debt.

“Out of those, if one had to pick one, growth would be the one that they choose but getting growth is never that simple.

“How do we grow our way out of debt? One way is to create a climate where businesses can say this is a place where we want to invest.  Another is increasing efficiency by getting more out of what you are currently doing.

“Finally, there is innovation, which sometimes shows up as a technology factor in the production function. It ends up being the residual that we can’t explain.”

The post Economist urges Government to manage disruptive technologies appeared first on Barbados Today.

International sport is in for some exciting times within the next few days, as the best cricketing nations converge on England for the staging of the 12th edition of the International Cricket Council's World Cup. It is the most prestigious white ball tournament in the sport with the championship having been won by the West Indies in the first two editions in 1975 and 1979.

Before and since that period, and not necessarily only in global tournaments, there have been several instances of persons playing for nations other than their birthplace for a variety of reasons. The likes of Kevin Pietersen quit South Africa cricket and headed to England because his country's quota system was hurting his chances of playing at the highest level. Eoin Morgan understandably threw in his lot with England because his native Ireland at the time was not an international Test-playing nation. Pakistani Imran Tahir married a South African and met the residency requirement in his adopted home before making the Proteas team.

Others such as Barbadians Gladstone Small and Roland Butcher, Vincentians Wilf Slack and Neil Williams, Jamaican Norman Cowans and Dominican Philip DeFreitas, played for England at a time when West Indies cricket was at its zenith and they simply could not make a West Indies line-up. Their long-term residency in England also made it strategically good sense to throw in their lot with the proverbial Mother Country.

But Barbadian Jofra Archer's case is somewhat different. He has stated emphatically that he decided to court a possible place in English cricket after playing for the West Indies Under-19 team in 2013 and not being selected for the ICC Youth World Cup in 2014. No doubt he believed he should have made the team, he felt slighted and he decided to seek his fortune elsewhere. This is a move to which he was absolutely entitled and we wish him all success with his England career, especially when the opposing players are not wearing the West Indies maroon.

But based on his comments this week and the knowledge that he has been courted by Cricket West Indies (CWI) to play for the region of his birth, the other side of the euphoria ought to be examined. Archer opted not to pursue a possible West Indies senior cricket career after not being selected when he thought he should have been at the junior level. But non-selection at particular junctures is the way of sports. Names such as Herbert Chang, Irvine Shillingford, Thelston Payne and Desmond Lewis deserved more opportunities than they eventually did at the senior level. The surfeit of talent available at the time dictated that this was the reality. The likes of Renford Pinnock never got an international opportunity and he was among the finest wicketkeeper/batsmen to play regional cricket in the mid-1960s to mid-1970s.

We have no doubt that given his talent, his post-teenage development, and the approaches that were made to him by CWI, that Archer could have found a place - on merit - in the present West Indies set-up where there is a dearth of easily recognizable international talent. But he is entitled to snub the West Indies and play for England. However, he is not entitled to infer that he was done some great injustice by the regional cricket governing body because he was not selected for the 2014 Youth World Cup in Dubai. Indeed, he was entitled to continue playing cricket like anyone else and to forcing his way into the Barbados and West Indies team like anyone else.

Archer had this to say this week following his selection to the England side: “I had got it in my head that I'd have to wait seven years. Then back in December, they obviously changed it a little bit, but I was prepared to wait however long it would take.”  The same individual who felt so aggrieved at missing out on the 2014 World Cup that it defined his future ambitions, has admitted that he was willing to wait “however long it would take” to make the England side. Somehow, whatever philosophy or passion that would have guided Archer's stance in 2014 not to wait and keep persevering for West Indies recognition, does not resemble the 2019 version of Archer who was willing to wait beyond seven years to make the England side.

We wish Archer a successful World Cup and career beyond under the emblem of the three lions. But it must not and should not go forth that he was done some major injustice by regional selectors. As was the case then and is the case now, it was a matter of choice. The regional selectors were entitled to choose the 15 they thought were the best at that time, just as much as Archer is entitled to choose the direction he thinks is best for his career and future at this time.

The post #BTEditorial – The other side of the Jofra Archer euphoria appeared first on Barbados Today.

NATIONAL artistic swimmer Gracie Foster has captured gold at the recently concluded Copa International Synchro Panama 2019. Foster beat a slew of athletes from Barbados, Panama, Jamaica and Mexico...

DAYS AFTER England fined and axed Alex Hales from their World Cup squad because of recreational drug use, the Barbados Tridents have embraced the dashing top-order batsman for this year’s Hero Caribbean...

GOVERNMENT MAY SWEETEN the “formal” debt restructuring terms it is preparing to offer foreign commercial creditors who have not been paid for almost a year. But the Ministry of Finance stressed while...

BARBADOS HAS AGREED to a long-term business partnership in the region of 25 to 30 years to completely renovate and refurbish Grantley Adams International Airport (GAIA), to make it the best small airport...

MUM’S THE WORD on negotiations between the Government of Barbados and Antigua and Barbuda over regional airline LIAT. Prime Minister Mia Mottley said yesterday Barbados remained committed to regional...