Landslide union victory THE UNIVERSITY and Allied Workers Union (UAWU) has trounced competing unions -- the National Workers Union (NWU) and United Union of Jamaica (UUJ) -- by a landslide to become the first to represent Jamaica Urban Transit Company (JUTC) non-supervisory staff. The UAWU scored 1,224 or over 70 per cent of the 1,576 votes polled by the company's bus and maintenance crews. A union needs only 50 per cent plus one vote to win sole representational rights. The NWU got 335 votes and the UUJ got none. Some 2,000 workers were eligible to take part, 17 ballots were rejected and 423 persons did not vote. The poll was held at the company's three depots -- Spanish Town, Ashenheim Road and Lyndhurst Road -- on Friday, but the votes were counted yesterday at the Ministry of Labour and Social Security. The results characterised a dramatic change in the workers attitudes to the unions, based on the results of the original poll held in April last year. At that time, only 490 of the eligible 907 workers bothered to vote. The NWU picked up 293, the UAWU 166 and, the UUJ 15. There were 14 spoilt votes and 417 workers did not vote. NWU vice-president Danny Roberts attributed the swing against the union to "a triumph of perception over reality. There is a belief and a perception that unions affiliated to the political party in power don't push hard enough on behalf of the workers. But, the reality is that the NWU has continued to deal with workers' issues, irrespective of which party is in Government." UAWU vice-president Clifton Grant, who was in charge of the UAWU's campaign at the JUTC, said that the key to their victory was organisation. "We just gave the guidance and the workers did the rest. On Friday they were on the road doing everything. We didn't have to do anything. They have put their trust in us and we just have to justify that faith." Mr. Grant said that the union would be holding a series of meeting with crews at the three depots, starting this week. He said that the union's main concern was the low salaries paid to the workers. "You can't have a man handling a bus valued at $8 million and he can't even take home $5,000 per week! They also need a better health scheme, insurance and pension benefits and there is a lack of respect for them, which has led to distrust of the management," he said.
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