The announcement of the new Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) Cabinet on Wednesday has created a number of vacancies within the Jamaica Confederation of Trade Unions (JCTU) and the Bustamante Industrial Trade Union (BITU) which are likely to be filled by next week.

President of the JCTU, Dwight Nelson, confirmed yesterday that he has already sent in his resignation to the executive of the confederation with immediate effect.

Nelson, who will be sworn-in this morning at King’s House as minister without portfolio in the Ministry of Finance and the Public Service, is expected to be succeeded by the current JCTU general-secretary, Lloyd Goodleigh, who has been his heir apparent for some time.

The governing body of the BITU, its Management Executive Committee (MEC), is expected to meet between Monday and Tuesday to decide on a new leadership structure and team.

The union’s triennial delegates’ conference is due this year, but the congress is not expected before October. The MEC will put in place a temporary structure built around the current second-tier leadership to lead the union until a new president and vice presidents are elected at the congress to replace the three top leaders who have been named to the Bruce Golding-led Cabinet.

BITU president Ruddy Spencer, who will be sworn-in this morning as the new minister of health and environment, and vice-president Pearnel Charles, who will become minister of labour and social security, have joined Nelson, the senior vice-president, in the Cabinet.

Ministry Paper Number 19 of 2002, states that:

“Ministers should arrange their affairs so as to avoid any suggestion that a trade union, of which they continue as a member, has any undue influence. They should take no active part in the conduct of union affairs, should give up any office they may hold in a union and should receive no remuneration, except a nominal payment, purely for the purpose of protecting the minister’s future pension rights.”

The appointment of the three BITU officers to the Cabinet fulfils a promise made by Golding, prior to the September 3 general elections, to reconnect the umbilical link between the union and the party. The late National Hero Sir Alexander Bustamante founded the BITU in 1938 and the JLP in 1943.

Golding told a BITU luncheon last December that the party had to reposition itself, in terms of worker-related issues, to allow both organisations to become more supportive of each other.

Spencer said yesterday that the union would not suffer from the trio’s departure for the Cabinet.

“We have already recruited and trained the necessary replacements, who are quite capable of running the union just as effectively as their predecessors,” he said.

Spencer was referring to the second-tier leadership of assistant general-secretary Kavan Gayle, assistant island supervisor Alvin Sinclair, vice-president Wesley Nelson and senior negotiating officer Clayson Panton.

Gayle and Sinclair are likely to form a temporary leadership team which will continue in place until the union’s triennial congress, which is due this year and expected to be held by October.

Gayle currently represents mainly white collar workers in the banking sector, which is controlled by the BITU, as well as Air Jamaica. He has also been seeking to pioneer the union’s return to the bauxite alumina sector via junior managers and technologists at St Ann Bauxite Company.

Sinclair represents the BITU’s front-line members, the waterfront workers, and has recently been involved in organising workers in the tourism sector as well.

Nelson is in charge of public sector employees, including the National Water Commission as well as the Jamaica Public Service Company Limited and private security guards, while Panton oversees a wide range of workers, including junior managers and ancillary staff in the banks and building societies.

This younger team will also have the capable guidance of veteran trade unionists George Fyffe, the union’s general secretary for many years, and deputy island supervisor, Wycliffe Matthews.