(WIPA) The West Indies Players Association (WIPA), in accordance with the Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) between the two organisations, submitted its documents to the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) today, June 30, 2011 for the revision and renewal of the agreement including proposed dates and venues.
This is a requirement of the existing Agreement, the process for which was initiated by the WICB in April 2003 by then President and former West Indies great, Reverend Wesley Hall and signed in 2006 by Mr. Kenneth Gordon, then President of the Board and Mr. Dinanath Ramnarine, President and CEO of WIPA. The historic signing of the agreements was witnessed by former Prime Minister of Grenada and Chairman of the Caricom Prime Ministerial Sub Committee for Cricket, Dr. Keith Mitchell
Commenting on the revision exercise, President and CEO of WIPA, Mr. Dinanath Ramnarine, said, “WIPA is very committed to the negotiation process and looks forward to playing our part in the advancement of West Indies cricket. Just as Australia, England and other international jurisdictions have recognized that players’ rights are essential and proportional to performance, what we want is an environment that is sufficiently supportive of the players’ rights and their development to act as catalyst to develop the future of our regional game.”
Mr. Ramnarine also paid tribute to the far-sighted WICB representatives who actually made the Agreement a reality. He lauded, in particular, Mr. Hall and the former WICB CEO, Roger Brathwaite: “I must give credit to Mr. Hall who, emulating other international sports models, saw the need to put the relationship between the WICB and the players on an equal footing and to level the playing field for the future of West Indies Cricket. Mr. Brathwaite, as CEO at the time, put a lot of time and thought into ensuring that the CBA was not one-sided, so as to drown out the voice and rights of Players. In fact, so conscious was WICB management at the time of the importance of Players’ rights, Mr. Hall repeatedly made it clear that he wanted us to come up with an agreement that would not be overturned by his successors but that would, in its fundamentals, remain as a platform to take our cricket forward into the future.”
To that end, in an effort to protect the players and the integrity of West Indian cricket, the WICB and WIPA agreed to Article VI (6) of the CBA, which states that the present agreements, remain in full force until a revised CBA and MOU is signed by both parties.