The National Newspaper of St. Vincent and the Grenadines
FRIDAY,
JUNE 07, 2013
VOLUME 107, No.20
www.thevincentian.com
EC$1.50
Noel Jackson:
„PORT POLICE BULLDOZED‰ IT JUST MIGHT BE a “little too late in the game” to expect any sort of collaboration between the two trade union organisations that are representing the employees of the St. Vincent and the Grenadines Port Authority. This is according to Noel Jackson, President of the National Workers Movement (NWM), who on Tuesday told THE VINCENTIAN NEWSPAPER had his Union been made aware of the issues affecting the Port Police before this paper broke the story mid-April, the pending outcome could have quite possibly been different. Describing his union as having the largest “power base” of Port Authority employees, he explained “our membership could have more effectively shut down the Port because look, the Port Police sick out and they sent in the police to provide security, the police can’t run the port.” Jackson, who is also the President of the National Labour Congress, criticised the Public Service Union’s
supposed role in the April 12th sick out which saw a reported 80% of the officers employed to secure the local ports absent from work. He said “I know of a few officers who had to resign from the PSU because Port Police were bulldozed for disagreeing with the direction Vanloo wanted to take.” THE VINCENTIAN previously reported that neither the SVG Port Authority nor the PSU, has acknowledged a sick out having taken place. Cools Vanloo, president of the PSU has since denied any involvement in what Port Police Chief Lenroy Brewster described as “… an unusually high number of persons calling in sick on the date in question.” Brewster also clarified that said occurrence could not be classified as an industrial action, since no formal indications were presented to him or the Port Authority’s general office. In that first interview, the Port Police Chief also refuted claims that the Special Services Unit (SSU) of the
Noel Jackson, General Secretary of the NWM, says Port Police were bulldozed for having disagreed with Cools Vanloo. by JP SCHWMON
local constabulary was called in to manage security at the Cruise Ship Terminal. Jackson further shared that he could not understand why one of the primary complaints listed was used in validation of the exercised industrial action. This, he claims, is because the payment of automatic increments was never a negotiating point. It was a system, he said, that the National Workers Movement met in place when they recruited their first membership pool at the port. He however explains “the Port Authority indicated to us that they’ve found paying out the automatic increments was becoming a financial burden in addition to its other costs of operation. They also said they were looking to institute a Performance Based Increment system in its place, and the NWM agreed. While we were waiting for the nonpayment of the automatic increments issue to be fully resolved (because the payments were stopped abruptly), the NWM asked them [Port Management]
“You murdered Agassi,” lawyer tells witness by HAYDN HUGGINS DEFENCE LAWYER Kay Bacchus-Browne told prosecution star witness, Brando Lockhart, during a trial on Tuesday, that he was the one who murdered an 18Left: Odinga Fraser, the accused, on his way to court last Tuesday.
year-old student, almost four years ago, and not her client. Bacchus-Browne is representing Odinga Foster,27, a former loans officer at the Kingstown Cooperative Credit Union (KCCU, who is charged with the kidnapping and murder of his cousin Agassi Fraser, a student of the St. Vincent Community College at the
to pay out a 3% in lieu of the increments.” The first payment, Jackson said, was made “sometime in 2011… the second was in December 2012, and we’re set to demand another payment if they continue to drag their feet.” These payments, the NWM president noted, was issued across the board to all port workers, including the currently embattled Port Police. This, he contends, is why it seems as if the PSU is beating a dead horse in their quest for resolution on the increments matter. “Every single man jack accepted it, so the Authority by rights would’ve assumed that this new arrangement worked,” he underscored. Continued on Page 3.
Right: Kay BacchusBrowne, lawyer for the accused, pointed a finger of accusation at a star witness for the prosecution.
time of his death, and conspiracy to commit kidnapping. He is alleged to have committed the offences between September and October 2009. But while Lockhart, who referred to Foster as his “best friend”, admitted that he assisted Foster in dumping an
unknown body, he denied that he was involved in the kidnapping and murder of the Green Hill youth. Continued on Page 4.