The Principal of the Barbados Community College and the National Union of Public Workers

(NUPW) will meet at 10:30 today (Wednesday, October 1st, 2025) to continue discussions on the issues that led to some staff staging industrial action yesterday(Tuesday, September 30th, 2025).

This meeting would be a continuation of talks between the college’s administration, the staff members, and their union on the issue surrounding the appointment of an individual to a vacant post at the college. The last meeting was scheduled for Monday, September 29th, 2025, at 1 pm, but the shop stewards opted not to attend.

As indicated by Principal Annette Alleyne previously, while the College respects the concerns of the staff and their right to freedom of expression, the focus throughout the day was on maintaining the quality of education and minimizing disruption to students.

“Classes went ahead yesterday (Tuesday) despite the action taken by some staff members. And expect that evening classes will be affected. I walked around the campus and got the sense that things were progressing as normal. Based on our count, the action began with about 20 staff members and grew to about 60. Now, regarding the meeting, we welcome the opportunity to continue dialogue with our staff members on a way forward.

Ms. Alleyne also addressed some of the other issues raised, including questions surrounding the relationship between the College and the National Transformation Initiative (NTI). She pointed out that the relationship was the result of a stated plan to offer a more diverse range of courses to students and that the staff drafted the proposal and made the request to implement the NTI courses as electives.

“This was not forced on us by the Chair of the Board. Furthermore, we were in partnership with the NTI before Dr. Leacock became the Chair at BCC. We partnered with the NTI since 2020, and signed an MOU to that effect in 2021. In fact, one of the KPIs in our work plan 2021-2022 set out a continued collaboration as one of our goals, and this has been ongoing in our work plans since then. I want to add that all of the College’s work plans are shared with members of staff, so they should be aware that this collaboration goes way back.”

There was a contention that the NUPW had to intervene in the interview process, which Ms. Alleyne said was inaccurate. She explained that the NUPW had raised concerns about the sequence in advertising the vacant post; however, the NUPW at no time interrupted or intervened in the interview process.