Welcome to the website of Banking, Insurance and General Workers Union (BIGWU). Our Union is the Caribbean’s premier finance sector Union and also represents workers in the media and professional sectors.
Today, we, the workers of Republic Bank Limited, First Citizens, ALGICO, Eastern Credit Union, Trinidad and Tobago Mortgage Finance Company Ltd and Securities and Exchange Commission have staged a peaceful candle light vigil to call on our employers and the government to:
BIGWU congratulates Minister McLeod on passage of Labour Legislation
BIGWU CONGRATULATES MINISTER Mc LEOD ON PASSAGE OF LABOUR LEGISLATION
The Banking, Insurance and General Workers Union wishes to publicly congratulate the Honourable Minister of Labour Errol Mc Cleod, for reason of the passage of legislation at the most recent parliamentary session which repealed the Masters and Servants Ordinance. It is significant that this outdated and oppressive item of labour legislation has been repealed. Although it can be argued that the body of labour law which existed in the country since the passage of the Industrial Stabilisation Act of 1965 and the Industrial Relations Act of 1972, had already superceeded the common law as it applies to workers, the fact that this offensive legislation was not repealed despite attainment of national independence since 1962 speaks volumes for the nature of industrial relations in Trinidad and Tobago.
BIGWU REJECTS ROBERT RILEY'S PRIVATISATION PROPOSALS
The Banking, Insurance and General Workers Union totally and unreservedly rejects the proposals made by Robert Riley, a key managerial representative of the British Petroleum Industry, to privatise the nation’s hospitals and prisons.
The deputy chief executive officer of First Citizens Bank has been featured as welcoming the Finance Minister’s budgetary proposal to divest State owned shares at that financial institution. She professed her anxiety for “ordinary” citizens to own shares. Media enquiries to the representative Banking, Insurance and General Workers Union have focused on what objections the Union could have to its members becoming shareholders at that institution.
BIGWU Rejects Creeping Erosion of Civil and Political Rights
The hidden agenda of the Kamla Persad-Bissessar administration has now come fully to light with the Police Commissioner’s decision to deny the request of the People’s National Movement to hold its traditional post-Budget public discussion at Piggott’s Corner in Belmont. The refusal to grant permission to the elected Parliamentary Opposition, clearly illustrates definite political interference or at the very least an unwanted and undesirable political influence on decision making by the Commissioner of Police.
