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  • 1 year ago
A faction of workers previously aligned to NUGFW President James Lambert has broken away and formed their own faction, the Workers' Guardians. At a news conference this morning, the Workers' Guardians called on the membership to come out in their numbers on October 28th for the election of an executive and to vote for change in the NUGFW.
Transcript
00:00You want change, you don't like how the union run in, you say you want change.
00:05You don't vote in the union election, so that's why things have to stay how it is.
00:11You could make that change by coming out and participating in your union's election.
00:18October 28th is expected to see an historic election in the National Union of Government
00:24and Federated Workers, the NUGFW.
00:27As the workers' guardians seek to remove President James Lambert from the seat he has
00:32held for the last 16 years.
00:35I don't know if God made him a promise that he would live for the next 100 years.
00:41At 84 years old, after serving 16 years as the helm of the union, he still believes that
00:49he could carry it forward.
00:51However tenure aside, the workers' guardians say their biggest issue with their current
00:55leadership is the leadership style.
00:58His view is, I know the constitution say that, but me, I don't want to call a meeting for
01:04eight months.
01:06I don't want to call a general council for five months.
01:10We felt that that cannot continue and James Lambert must be removed.
01:22The workers' guardians are promising to do as their name says and put workers first and
01:27foremost once elected.
01:30We were going to propose, just imagine you as a member of the union, your roof blow off,
01:36your house burned down, do you feel that you being a member of this social organisation
01:43that you should be able to go to your union to get some assistance and we are saying yes,
01:49we are going to make those provisions.
01:52It's a whole paradigm shift in terms of how the NUGFW is going to operate.
01:58We are member centric and we are going to put things in place to assist members.
02:05A worker suspended with no pay or half pay, we are saying we will give you back your pay,
02:12but you feel that you should be able to go to your union for some kind of financial assistance.
02:18They are also promising to implement a pension plan for daily rated workers and continued
02:24medical insurance coverage for retirees.
02:27I always say, when you retire, your bills don't retire, your bills don't retire.
02:33So we want to engage government, yes there is some committee going now, that daily rated
02:38workers, until the government introduce a pension plan for daily rated workers, daily
02:45rated workers must access what we call the senior citizen grant at age 60.
02:52They must get senior citizen grant at age 60, because it's 30 years now we are waiting
02:58on the pension.
03:00Renessa Cutting, TV6 News.
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