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Senator: OBA cannot help workers

Senator LaVerne Furbert

Government Senator LaVerne Furbert says it’s “just amazing” the Opposition party claims to know about the concerns of workers.Ms Furbert told the Senate she had to question the articles in The Royal Gazette about the One Bermuda Alliance and the Bermuda Industrial Union.OBA chairman Michael Fahy was last week reported as saying workers were concerned about the BIU’s financial position as the union had fallen so far behind in reporting its accounts. Mr Fahy said he had obtained figures showing the BIU’s finance team is paid more than $400,000 a year.Ms Furbert said she was unable to pronounce Fahy because it was said differently to how it was spelt, but once told how to say the surname she hit back saying “Mr Fahy doesn’t have the answers.”Ms Furbert said: “Why would he voice his concerns about workers and members of the BIU? I think it’s just amazing that members would even consider talking to him.“They (the OBA) can voice their concerns about whatever is going on, but why would workers go to Mr Fahy to address concerns about the BIU. He doesn’t have the answers.“Surely workers would go straight to the union or PLP.”Ms Furbert, Junior Minister for Education and Youth Affairs, said she was speaking as a member of the Senate and not in her role as the BIU’s executive secretary.During her outburst she had to be corrected when she said the UBP had become the OBA. She was told that the UBP still existed.She said: “I keep forgetting the UBP still exist, there’s been so many changes over the last few weeks. It’s confusing to me and I live, eat and sleep politics, so it must be confusing to the people of Bermuda.”