NUPW’s General Secretary Roslyn Smith (right) speaks to the media while Treasurer Asokore Beckles (left) and President Akanni Mcdowall listen in.
By Monday, the National Union of Public Workers (NUPW) will decide what will be its next step concerning taking industrial action.
This is when a follow-up meeting is scheduled to take place between Chief Personnel Officer (CPO) Gail Atkins and the NUPW, on the issue surrounding what the union considers an act of “supersession” against its President Akanni Mcdowall.
McDowall was returned to his substantive post of Environmental Health Assistant I in the Ministry of Health, after acting as Health Planning Officer I in that Ministry from June 8 to October 14 of this year.
In full support of its head, the NUPW earlier this week threatened a national shutdown if a request to meet with the Chief Personnel Officer was not met by Thursday, and by Wednesday night Government announced that such a conference would take place.
Just minutes after the proposed 11:30 a.m. start yesterday, Mcdowall, accompanied by senior representatives of the NUPW, headed up the steps of the E. Humphrey Walcott Building in Culloden Road to meet with the CPO and other officials from the Personnel Administration Division and the Ministry of Civil Service.
After close to three hours of talks, the NUPW team emerged to speak to members of the media where they expressed satisfaction at being able to put forward their case to Atkins.
General Secretary of the bargaining agency Roslyn Smith said, however, that any decision for industrial action was still up in the air depending upon the decision of the CPO. “If the response is not what we are anticipating then we would continue our action.
“I am confident enough that errors were made and we're just seeking to have them corrected, so going forward we will continue to engage our membership pending the outcome next week,” she said. (JMB)
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