Will the BTC protests really turn into a mass public movement, a la 1958, and in turn - into a political jackpot for the Progressive Liberal Party (PLP)?

The BTC protest - a political circus
By PACO NUNEZ
Tribune News Editor



After today, it will be even harder than before to keep a straight face when someone tries to tell me there's no political agenda at work in the protest against the sale of BTC.

It might have been possible to overlook the PLP cronies sprinkled throughout the union-led Rawson Square protest before Christmas, or ignore the interesting coincidence of a Trade Union Congress vice president and vocal BTC-sale opponent being chosen as a PLP candidate.

But it would have taken a far larger dose of self-delusion than I am capable of administering to miss the implications of the National Congress of Trade Unions (NCTU) deciding that today, as it commemorates the 1958 general strike, it will also begin recruiting voters for the first time in its history.

I know this is a first, because when the press release was issued on Friday announcing that the NCTU - an umbrella organisation covering a number of unions including the two representing BTC staff - was calling for all its members to descend on the Parliamentary Registration Department at noon on Monday, it struck me as so strange that I sought an explanation.

"Why a voter registration drive?" - a seemingly simple question. It nevertheless met with such a bewildered reaction at NCTU HQ, you'd have thought I'd stumbled on a state secret.

The first person I spoke to declined to offer an answer. The second, very cagey and clearly suspicious, responded, "Because of the anniversary of general strike," as if the one followed logically on from the other.

She seemed very sure this was the reason, repeating her mantra regardless of how I tried to rephrase or qualify the question.

Eventually, she offered the slightly more helpful, "Because of Majority Rule" - which, granted, does seem a better reason to promote the spirit of representative democracy. Except that, as she admitted when asked, the NCTU had never once before, in the organisation's 16-year life, urged its members or affiliates to register as voters.

"Why now?" I asked, but she merely mumbled some blurb to the effect that since they were already planning to commemorate Majority Rule and the General Strike today, they figured, "Might as well add something else to the mix."

It has nothing to do with BTC or the PLP, she insisted.

Now, maybe I'm just a cynic, but it strikes me as highly unlikely that the choice of that specific "something else" while the labour movement is right in the middle of a busy schedule of angry town hall meetings and confrontational press statements - all directed at the government over the BTC sale and all supported by the opposition - was entirely without ulterior motives.

My opinion, I feel, is supported by the fact that the registration drive is being hitched to so emotive an issue as the celebrated General Strike, with all its connotations of taking a stand against injustice, the power of solidarity to overcome adversity and so on.

Then, there's the fact that so many unionists have already sought to tie the protests against BTC to the General Strike, some even threatening a reenactment of the event which paralysed Nassau for around three weeks.

Also, consider that the man who actually announced the voter registration drive on Friday, the NCTU's secretary general Robert Farquharson, is a big fan of the events of 1958, recently conducting a lecture series on their importance and raising the spectre of a repeat performance in 2008 when he threatened a national walkout of 45,000 union members over the BTC privatisation process.

This is the same Robert Farquharson who was lately president of the BCPOU, the union now protesting on behalf of the disgruntled BTC workers.

The same Robert Farquharson who, though vociferously opposed to the government's deal with Cable and Wireless, said nothing when the PLP revealed their earlier deal to sell the company to an unnamed group of foreigners - a decision his successor Bernard Evans distanced himself from, saying he doesn't think any foreign entity should own BTC and that he couldn't speak for Mr Farquharson's actions.

Just to be clear, I'm not suggesting Mr F is taking instructions from the PLP, or trying to drive voters into their waiting arms in the hopes of some political reward. He, like the other union leaders who've declared against the deal, understand the challenge it represents to their powerful and lucrative positions, and probably feel their potential to recruit for the opposition is nothing more than a threatening stick to wave in front of the government right now.

As an old BCPOU man, the NCTU secretary general will be well aware of this potential. After all, his predecessor as president of that union is now the PLP MP for Golden Gates, Shane Gibson, who led a series of high profile, politically-loaded union protests toward the end of the FNM's first stint in power.

Shane Gibson is also one of the point men on the PLP's BTC controversy-stirring team. He and his cohorts are well aware of the possible benefits of hitching their political cart to the anti-Cable and Wireless bandwagon, and I'd be willing to bet that the seed of this new enthusiasm for "voter registration" was subtly planted in the minds of NCTU members following one of the opposition's strategy sessions.

But will it pay off? Will the BTC protests really turn into a mass public movement, a la 1958, and in turn into a political jackpot for the PLP?

My money is on 'No'.

The reason is, while both the General Strike and today's BTC squabble began as protests by a small group of workers trying to protect their own interests - in the earlier case, taxi drivers - the reaction of the public has not been the same.

Today, the people don't seem to view most BTC workers the helpless victims of ruthless economic and political overlords, but rather highly over-paid, chronically underachieving wasters who have held the rest of us hostage with their incompetence and poor service for far too long.

Consider the fact that only about 300 people showed up at the recent NCTU-TUC Rawson Square demonstration, despite the presence of a large number of labour leaders from a wide array of unions, and that the BCPOU's public town hall meeting last week was attended by only a few hundred people.

As there are 1,200 BTC employees in total, it would seem the union leaders can't even get their own members, let alone the general public, involved in the crusade.

It seems this theory will be tested tonight, as the unions plan to hold a mass anti-BTC sale rally at RM Bailey Park and have invited all members of the public to attend.

We shall see what level of support these union leaders really enjoy - that is, once the crowd estimates have been down-sized to factor in the PLP supporters likely to be bused in to make up the numbers, political rally style.

What do you think?

Email: pnunez@tribunemedia.net

January 10, 2011

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