Dear Sir,

People shouldn’t be too impressed by the statement of support for Jason Hayward from the Caribbean Public Services Association.

Two reasons. First, that’s about all that organisation does: make statements of support from time to time for whichever one of its 17 affiliates is having a hassle with employers or the government or whoever. Oh, that and organise conferences that its members can go to.

Second, if you read the statement carefully, you’ll notice how vague it is. It says the legal action is being imposed on the Bermuda Public Services Union and its president by the Government. That’s not accurate. It’s a libel suit filed by Bob Richards himself against Jason Hayward, and has nothing to do with the BPSU.

The statement says, “any progressive government with the interest of the masses at heart should be committed to forging alliances with workers’ representative bodies.

Such a government, even where major differences exist, would explore means that have the effect of reducing contention and confrontation between employees and the political directorate”.

That’s a sort of Civil Service-speak way of saying that if the union gets mad, the Government should back off.

Now, that would be a heck of a way to run a country.

Do you think this Caribbean group is fully aware of what’s going on here in Bermuda?

I don’t think so. I think its statement was pretty much a fill-in-the-blanks pro forma, pulled out of some filing cabinet and sent off the moment Jason Hayward asked for it.

RUDIE