Barbados Civil Service Evolution: Historical Overview and Current Challenges

There was a time when industrial upheaval in Barbados was centred around the actions of the private sector. Public officers were generally viewed as operating in a fairly hospitable environment with satisfactory terms and conditions.

Even if there were disruptions, the general understanding was that people working in the local civil service enjoyed a level of permanency, that their salaries and wages would be in the bank at the appointed time and that they seldom suffered from the indignities that private sector workers endured.

Furthermore, the local civil service was able to attract the best and brightest minds who would eventually emerge over time to top leadership positions and provide the expert opinions that political leaders required to make the best decisions in the interest of Barbadian citizens.

In 2014, when compared to the total labour force, public sector employment in Barbados accounted for 17 per cent, which made the Barbados government the single largest employer.

In an Inter-American Development Bank paper titled The Civil Service in Latin America and the Caribbean: Situation and Future Challenges: The Caribbean Perspective by Gordon M. Draper, it was explained in the 2001 paper that 32 per cent of Barbados public servants had been employed in the service for over 20 years. The trends suggested at the time that the average length of service in the public service is well over 10 years.

Though it has become a contentious matter as it relates to “supersession”, generally speaking, matters of promotion and seniority were generally acknowledged as important factors in promotion decisions. This was shored up by legislation that states that qualifications, merit, and seniority should be used.

Something has obviously changed across the civil service landscape as walk-outs, sick-outs, and other forms of industrial unrest are being reported. What is interesting is there have been very few instances of union-initiated strikes, the exception being the Unity Workers Union (UWU) which has led strikes at the Barbados Revenue Authority (BRA) and by scores of healthcare workers in its membership.

Another area of contention in the public service has been the government’s increasing reliance on temporary workers and contract workers who enjoy few, if any, of the guarantees of full-time and appointed government workers.

Added to that is a situation where high-level positions in the public service are given only short-term contracts of two or three years. It has been argued that such a practice whittles away at the autonomy of such officials and the provision of independent advice to the political leadership.

A raft of new labour-related legislation has been coming from the administration, ranging from minimum wages and conditions of work for tourism workers, and pensions reform. There are also planned changes to the Employment Rights Act, and the planned introduction of a minimum wage and conditions of work for the construction sector.

At the same time, the administration has been caught up in a vortex of disgruntlement and latent unrest in the public sector. It is not uncommon on a daily and weekly basis to hear of disruptions at educational institutions, protests over the attitude of management to concerns of subordinates, unease about legislative amendments to the pension expectations of government workers and the list goes on.

Over the weekend, it was not surprising that President of the Barbados Union of Teachers (BUT) Mr Rudy Lovell urged the administration to urgently address a number of issues that impact his union’s membership.

They ranged from the rising level of school violence, challenges with security at schools, to poor infrastructure at some institutions and inadequate staffing.

He called out the Ministry of Education over “the absence of security guards in some 20 schools, despite having security huts, is unacceptable”.

The union president added: “We need initiative-taking measures, not reactive ones. To protect our schools includes ensuring every school has adequate security measures, namely trained, physically-fit security personnel.”

It is conditions such as these that are driving talented and experienced public officers into retirement even though they still have the capacity to serve several more years.

In recent days, the country’s main health institution was hit by a sick-out with key personnel from the Accident and Emergency Department refusing to turn up for work over the non-payment of a COVID-related hazard allowance after waiting for more than six months.

What all this demonstrates is a need for a critical examination of the work environment across the public sector and a real desire to find sustainable solutions to the many problems confronting it.