BICO, the oldest ice cream manufacturer in Barbados, will be faced with protest action on Thursday morning as the mobile sales team continues to object to recent changes to the fee structure.A number of full-time and part-time mobile ice cream retail vendors are protesting management’s move to impose what they describe as steep increases in various fees including electricity charges to offset hikes by the Barbados Light & Power Company (BL&P).Some of the ice cream mobilers, as they are called, decided to embark on protest action following what they described as an unsuccessful meeting on Tuesday with BICO’s Executive Chairman Edwin Thirlwell which was called to try to negotiate a more “manageable” increase in charges for the rental of certain equipment and provision of services to the on-the-road sales team.The mobile sales persons who are on contract as franchisers with the 122-year-old company, parked their vans and trucks in the yard of the company since Tuesday and refused to sell anything until there is a review of the new charges, some of which take effect on April 17.“There are other measures such as increases in security fees when the vans are not working. He [Edwin Thirlwell] wants to charge us $20 a day and then he wants to charge those who use an inverter power outlet $29 a week, and those who have holdover cabinets, which would be the bigger vans, he wants to charge $68 a week,” one of mobile sales persons who preferred to remain anonymous told Barbados TODAY.
