Defence force and police officers were called in to man posts at Morton Bahamas Limited yesterday after some 95 percent of its workers delivered on a promise to take industrial action at the Inagua Salt Plant.

President of the Bahamas Industrial Manufacturing and Allied Workers Union (BIMAWU) Wilfred Seymour told the Bahama Journal that about 84 of his members took strike action as early as 4am Friday, leaving the salt plant with "no one" to man operations.

"Right now, everything is in place. A ship is expecting 40,000 tons on Saturday evening. I don’t exactly know what they are going to do with that, but we thought 4am was the right time to do what we had to do," the union president said.

"So right now, operations at the plant are at a standstill. The only persons at Morton right now are security, police and defence force officers. The union is on the other side with their members demonstrating."

And according to Mr. Seymour, his union will remain on strike until a number of longstanding issues are resolved once and for all.

The union has been threatening to strike for weeks.

Read the rest of the report at BahamasLocal.com