Both Sides of The Coin: The Story of The Central Bank of Barbados 1972-2017

102 MANAGING HUMAN RESOURCES The demands of the staff and the needs of the Bank were responsible for the increased attention that was paid to human resources issues after 1990. Employees were more aware of the Bank’s responsibilities to them and the Bank, for its part, had to do everything that it reasonably could to create a happy working environment. The anchor of this interaction was the establishment of a Human Resources Department in 1998, arising in part from industrial action two years earlier. The 1996 strike action The industrial relations climate has been relatively calm for most of the Bank’s existence. However, during October 1996, the Bank was faced with its most serious industrial dispute, both in terms of duration and the potential for compromising its reputation. The industrial action, which started with a number of staff members walking off the job around mid-morning on Tuesday, October 22, was called to dispute five appointments in the Internal Audit Department. Two meetings between the Bank and the BWU during the following 24 hours ended in failure. On the second day of the dispute, the staff, (their ranks swollen by additional strikers) and BWU officials started to picket the Bank. The BWU gave the Bank until 4:00 p.m. on October 25, to find a solution or face an escalation of the action but the Bank responded with a press release stating its determination to maintain its position. A nine- hour meeting on October 26 still did not resolve the impasse. Accordingly, the industrial action entered its second week and the strikers were joined by workers from other divisions of the Union. However, the two sides resumed discussion and an agreement was finally reached late on the night of October 29. The five original appointments were confirmed and promotions were made to fill five other existing vacancies. For purposes of clarity, the Bank issued a statement on the following day, pointing out