A campaign has been launched by the Barbados Workers’ Union (BWU) to give specific attention to the challenges faced by employees of fast food establishments and improve their conditions of work.
The union’s Deputy General Secretary Dwaine Paul said the Recipe for Respect will also seek to unite the workers in the sector, on the heels of recent industrial action at popular fast food restaurant KFC and other problems at other similar businesses.
“And that can go as far as we need it to go, but one of the key principles of this campaign is to deal with those domestic issues within this sector that continue to plague these workers, and having us treating them less than the professionals they are,” he said during a press conference held at the union’s headquarters on Tuesday.
“So we are going to be, at the end of this campaign, seeking to have the standards of those workers raised, the conditions of those workers improved, and we are not going to stop.”
Paul said that the union has already received full cooperation and support from the International Union of Food, Agricultural, Hotel, Restaurant, Catering, Tobacco and Allied Workers’ Associations (IUF), to assist in this area.
“We’ve had meetings with them thus far, and through their leadership, we’ve gotten support for campaigns and actions in Barbados to focus on the fast food workers. I am saying to all workers engaged in that sector, that we are about you and we are standing with you, not only in Barbados but at the global level.
“Very shortly we will convene a meeting with representatives from IUF and the local committees for them to become familiar with each other as we build out this campaign.”