VETERAN trade unionist Vincent Morrison resigned Tuesday as president of the National Workers Union (NWU), five months after he was booted as its island supervisor.

In a letter to the union’s office manager/secretary, Vivienne Reynolds, Morrison informed her that he was stepping down, with immediate effect, as president of the union, a position to which he was elected in 2006 after nearly 40 years as an officer.

“As you are aware, I will be proceeding to the courts to recover outstanding salaries,” he said in the letter to the office manager.

Morrison told the Jamaica Observer yesterday that he is owed more than $1 million in unpaid salaries and allowances. He said that despite several letters to general secretary/island supervisor, Granville Valentine, and several requests for the Ministry of Labour and Social Security’s intervention no move, has been made to resolve the issue.

Morrison has not visited the union’s office since January when, he alleged, that he was warned “not to visit the office without supervision”. However, despite being forced to leave the post of island supervisor, he did not give up his elected position of president.

Since his departure, Valentine, who helped elect him to the presidency over Danny Roberts in 2006, has assumed the main leadership roles in the union of general secretary, island supervisor and acting president.

Morrison joined former NWU general secretary, Senator Navel Clarke, and Robert Harris, who was general secretary of the NWU’s white collar affiliate, the Union of Clerical, Administrative and Supervisory Personnel, in separating UCASE from the NWU and moving out to Tangerine Place, St Andrew, from which he still operates.