A new slate of leaders will be chosen by the Bustamante Industrial Trade Union (BITU) at its next triennial congress on Saturday, November 10, following the departure of three senior officers to join the new Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) cabinet.

The decision was announced Tuesday, following an emergency meeting of its Management Executive Committee (MEC) at the union’s head office on Duke Street in Kingston.

The MEC has, in the meantime, appointed an interim committee to oversee the running of the union pending the congress.

The interim committee is chaired by the general secretary, veteran trade unionist George Fyffe and will also include another veteran in deputy island supervisor Wycliffe Matthews. Other members are vice-president Wesley Nelson, assistant general secretary Kavan Gayle, assistant island supervisor Alvin Sinclair and senior negotiating officer Clayson Panton.

Nelson, Gayle, Sinclair and Panton are also seen as the front-runners for the four positions to be filled at the congress – president, senior vice-president and two vice-presidents.

The vacancies have been created by the departure of former president, Rudyard Spencer, former senior vice-president Dwight Nelson, and former vice-president Pearnel Charles to join the Bruce Golding-led JLP cabinet. The other vice-presidential post had been vacant.

Spencer is now the Minister of Health and Environment, Nelson is Minister without Portfolio in the Ministry of Finance and the Public Service, while Charles is Minister of Labour and Social Security.

Nelson, who was also president of the Jamaica Confederation of Trade Unions (JCTU), has also resigned that post. He is expected to be replaced by current general secretary, Lloyd Goodleigh.

Ministry Paper Number 19 of 2002, which outlines the rules for the conduct of cabinet ministers, 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.”