One of Barbados’ most established construction firms is moving forward with planned staff cuts that have put it at odds with the country’s main labor organization, even as the national construction sector sees widespread growth. 66-year-old C.O. Williams Construction Ltd., which grew from a small one-tractor earthmoving business launched by founder Charles Williams in 1960 into a leading player in the island’s civil engineering and infrastructure space, notified all employees of impending redundancies in an internal June 5 memo, with cuts set to begin as early as June 12, 2026.
In the official notice, the firm cited mounting pressures that have eroded its ability to maintain its current headcount. General manager Marc Atwell wrote that long-running operational challenges have sharply reduced the company’s competitiveness, forcing leadership to restructure and downsize the workforce to align with current needs. The memo followed all required notification protocols under company policy and Barbadian national labor law, and Atwell directed employees with questions to reach out to the company’s human resources department for further clarity. Neither Atwell nor other company leaders have responded to additional requests for comment since the memo became public.
While Atwell did not disclose the exact number of workers facing job loss, the Barbados Workers’ Union (BWU), the exclusive bargaining agent for the company’s employees, says approximately 30 positions are set to be cut. The union has already entered into preliminary discussions with company leadership over the cuts, but has rejected framing the downsizing as a routine administrative step and is demanding concrete evidence to justify the layoffs.
BWU officials emphasized that every affected worker supports a household with financial and personal obligations that cannot be reduced to line items on a corporate budget. The union’s top priority, it says, is protecting the dignity, legal rights, and earned entitlements of any workers impacted by the cuts, and ensuring no employee faces unfair treatment during the selection process. Company leaders have told the union that the planned layoffs stem from broader industry pressures, including lost contracts and ongoing headwinds across Barbados’ construction sector. But union leaders have pushed back against shifting the entire burden of these challenges onto workers, who did not create the market conditions the firm is facing.
The BWU has demanded that C.O. Williams open meaningful consultation with the union, share verifiable evidence justifying the need for cuts, commit to a fair and objective process for selecting which roles will be eliminated, and guarantee that all legally required and contractually agreed severance and benefits are paid in full to displaced workers. The organization also used the dispute to highlight a broader national priority: building a Barbadian construction sector that prioritizes skilled labor, worker experience, and decent working conditions.
The union’s stance is firm: it opposes unnecessary job cuts and will continue to uphold the principle that workers should never be treated as disposable when businesses face economic pressure. The planned layoffs come at a time when Barbados is experiencing a nationwide construction boom, a context that makes the company’s justification for downsizing all the more questionable to union leadership.