Saint Lucians woke-up early Tuesday morning, saying ‘Thank God, we were spared!’
Whether it was God, Our Lucky Stars or Mother Earth, one-eyed Hurricane Beryl came to our national doorstep, looked us in the eyes, spread her windy wings far-and-wide and threatened to give us another beating.
But Beryl suddenly changed mind – and path.
On Friday, we’d just started hoping and praying for the best, but also – as officially advised – expecting and preparing for the worst.
Besides, it was no ordinary weekend: a month-end, pay-day weekend that would also see Fishermen’s Day (last Sunday in June) and Dennery Carnival – and a very-serious hurricane,
NEMAC urged citizens to stock-up items considered ‘essential’ while hosting ‘pre-strike’ meetings ahead of Hurricane Beryl’s expected arrival on Sunday.
Friday and Saturday would therefore be the last business days and with the repeated ‘Mama Hurricane’ warnings taken seriously, workers whose salaries went directly to their bank accounts naturally expected to be able to count on accessing them for the weekend’s emergency.
But it didn’t turn-out that way for those with accounts at Bank of Saint Lucia (BOSL).
On Friday, while customers flocked its branches island-wide to withdraw cash to stock-up and otherwise prepare, many couldn’t access their funds – because BOSL staff were on strike.
It still beats me why the bank’s workers were advised and/or encouraged to strike on Thursday and Friday, just ahead of an impending hurricane strike on Saturday and Sunday.
Thanks to the strike, endless ordinary customers expecting to use their ATM cards were left hanging high-and-dry.
Over the weekend, thousands depending on month-end salaries being posted to their accounts were left to suck salt as their ATM cards were useless, thanks the staff strike.
Not that anyone has a problem with bank staff wanting to hold the bank to ransom on an internal issue having to do with workers and their union wanting to force management to fire a senior manager they have problems with.
But even though those affected would normally have supported the principle that unions and workers must take action when, how and where it will hurt employers most, those affected insist it’s not-so in this case of a not-at-all-normal situation.
History Beckons…
Banking was not classified as an ‘essential service’ when the Essential Services Act was passed almost five decades ago, but with banks encouraging use of online services, banking itself has graduated over time to become as essential a service as public utilities (telephone, electricity and water) – all of which customers are being encouraged to pay for through online banking.
Seems to me that, if paying for utilities is essential and citizens (in the Age of the Internet of Things) are being encouraged to stop taking lines at banks and instead use paperless transactions, the banks should therefore also be ready and willing, at all times, to show their appreciation for those customers who made that transition to online banking.
I know of too-many BOSL customers who were awaiting their government salaries to be posted to their accounts to be able to take NEMAC’s advice to purchase the essential items they would need before the hurricane struck.
I know too of fishermen who planned to observe Fishermen’s Day on Saturday, but were left effectively sucking saltfish – without water.
I have discussed this issue with pro Working-Class friends who stuck to the traditional line that “Workers must hit employers where it hurts most” and “If that strike what it took to get the bank to hear and feel, then so be it.”
But I profoundly disagree because, in this case, while the bank’s management saw, heard and felt the strike, it’s managers and staff were not hurt – and the immediate objective (dismissal of the Senior Manager) was not achieved.
Instead, what was achieved was an effective punishment and abandonment of a significant portion of the bank’s customers when they most-needed emergency access to their finances, whether on-the-line (at a branch) or online (at an ATM).
If customers affected decided to break with BOSL and take their business to another bank, BOSL – and its staff and their union – will have no one else to blame but themselves, for opting to punish customers in the middle of a national emergency.
Not surprisingly, the union concerned has remained (unusually) loudly silent on the matter.
But what’s is the feeling towards the staff by affected customers who saw them on TV accusing the management of ‘not caring’ and saying they ‘won’t care until you do…’?
Naturally, the workers and their union didn’t seem to care about the bank’s customers and citizens who’d be affected in this emergency situation, or they might have decided that in the middle of a national emergency was the best time to take strike action, never mind that it would affect innocent citizens and their families’ ability to prepare for a major hurricane.
Very few of my trade unionist friends saw it my way, insisting workers have an eternal ad unchallenged right to strike when it will hit the employer worst, never mind the unintended fallout, some even suggesting the affected fellow workers should understand their sacrifice was “in solidarity with fellow worker.”
I don’t know the staff I saw protesting would have been ready to embark on a similar solidarity strike in support of stevedores represented by the Seamen and Waterfront Workers Union.
But I told some friends Monday, I suspected Mother Nature spared Saint Lucia this time because after the severe battering by hurricanes and tropical storms names after men and women, she didn’t want to let El Nino or La Nina again abuse the only nation named after a woman.
We only now gladly know (after the fact) that if Beryl did visit, thanks to the strike, thousands-more would have been in deeper doo-doo today, like in those other islands violently visited by what turned out to be (unfortunately, for them) another Mother Hurricane.