The Constitution of Barbados confers on the now President, the right to appoint seven persons to the Senate of Barbados in her own right. The condition under which she is required to exercise that right, is that due regard should be paid to selecting of persons to “represent various religious, social economic or other interest in Barbados.”

In the aftermath of the 1986 elections, Prime Minister, the Right Excellent Errol Walton Barrow nominated, Frank Walcott to the Senate of Barbados; where the latter presided as President of the Senate.

In the aftermath of the 1994 elections, then Prime Minister, the late Owen Arthur, expressed the wish that a place could be found in the Senate for Leroy Trotman, the then General Secretary of the Barbados Workers Union (BWU).

Toni Moore, the current General Secretary of the BWU, took a seat in the Senate in 2018 as one of the seven Senators to be appointed by the Governor General. When she resigned her senatorial seat, Julian Hunte a former Deputy General Secretary, BWU, was appointed as her replacement.

Against the backdrop of these sequence of events, there is the expectation that Barbadians will begin to understand and appreciate why CTUSAB would wish to see a Constitutional amendment, that guarantees Labour a seat at the Senate of Barbados.

It is axiomatic that for the first time in thirty years, there is no labour voice in the senate. History will record that the first Ambassador of a newly independent Barbados to the United Nations (UN), was the pre-eminent trade unionist, Frank Walcott. In an act of poignancy, it is to be noted that in the first year of the Republic of Barbados, there is no Labour representative in the Senate of Barbados.