Call For Early Hotel Union Election

Mr. Morley said that the termination of so many employees in the industry over the past year has caused many members to lose confidence in the leadership of the hotel union.

"The year 2009 is a year of finality. No matter how the devil rages, God’s ultimate and divine purpose will be manifested and His hand is upon something that workers have had to endure for years, because there have been too many wolves in sheep’s clothing, appearing to be one that come to sound the alarm and act on behalf of persons who make it happen for all of us," he said.

"At the end of the day, we see the results. All of the experience they brag about and everything they talk about means nothing because today, the union finds itself in dire straits. It finds itself in a position that needs total restoration – restoring confidence and trust," Mr. Morley said.

He explained that the union leadership has an obligation to ensure that the process of laying off workers and firings go "by the book."

"We are calling on the Minister of Labour to intervene and to do his job to make sure that all parties are brought together, so that we can have a special meeting for one common and simple purpose: to make sure that an early election is called and held so that the members do not feel cheated and disenfranchised," said Mr. Morley.

"I am telling you, there is a great aura in the atmosphere where persons feel that they cannot trust the present leadership and some officers of the union. We have a moral responsibility to meet and to sit, and the minister has a fiduciary responsibility to meet and treat with all of those parties concerned," he said.

Mr. Morley said that he is highly disappointed that the minister has not yet intervened.

For nearly a year, the union’s president Roy Colebrooke, Secretary General Leo Douglas and Treasurer, Basil McKenzie, have been at odds with other members of the union’s executive team, including Morley.

Their fight was taken to court when members of the executive body tried to suspend the president from his duties and the president allegedly withheld salaries from those executives who were opposing him.

A court order demanded that those salaries be paid and that the President and Secretary General’s responsibilities be diminished until full investigations were completed.

"Many don’t understand that what has happened, has happened divinely. Somebody has to answer for my grandmother, my mother and their tenure in the hotel industry and the disservice and the injustices that they have had to endure. Somebody has to give an account for that time," Mr. Morley said.

"While we continue to use the Pension Fund as a benefit or asset, to suggest that they should be grateful and thankful, I believe that if we were on the cutting edge in the new millennium as we have suggested, what my mother and grandmother are getting currently and what they should have been getting if we had prudent and upright persons representing and protecting their interest, it would have been a new day in The Bahamas," he said.