The au­top­sy on the body of Kern Eti­enne who trag­i­cal­ly lost his life af­ter be­ing buried alive in­side a trench at a WASA job site last week­end is sched­uled for to­day at the Point Fortin mor­tu­ary.

Joyce Grant-Roberts, Eti­enne’s griev­ing moth­er, ap­pealed for an in­de­pen­dent and im­par­tial in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to her son’s death. Grant-Roberts em­pha­sised the im­por­tance of hav­ing rep­re­sen­ta­tives from the trade union move­ment par­tic­i­pate in this in­de­pen­dent in­quiry.

“I am heart­bro­ken. I have not been the same since my son died. He leaves be­hind his two chil­dren who are griev­ing for him,” she lament­ed.

The griev­ing moth­er wants to get to the bot­tom of the cir­cum­stances sur­round­ing her son’s death. 

“I want to tell who­ev­er is in­ves­ti­gat­ing, do not ac­cept any bribes from WASA, do not sweep any­thing un­der the car­pet. Let jus­tice be served. Let’s think about the oth­er work­ers that WASA em­ploys so that this trag­ic in­ci­dent will nev­er re­peat it­self,” she said.

She ex­pressed con­cern that im­me­di­ate­ly af­ter he was rushed to the hos­pi­tal, the trench had been cov­ered up.

“They did not wait for the po­lice or even call the po­lice. When the po­lice ar­rived, they told me the trench was al­ready cov­ered up by the time they reached the scene,” she re­count­ed. She said the po­lice should have been con­tact­ed im­me­di­ate­ly.

“I be­lieve they should not have cov­ered the hole. They were sup­posed to put up cau­tion tape and in­form the po­lice, but none of that hap­pened. The po­lice found out on­ly when they saw the no­tices that WASA put up. The po­lice gath­ered in­for­ma­tion from the hos­pi­tal be­fore com­ing to my house,” Grant-Roberts re­vealed.

The dis­traught moth­er is­sued a heart­felt plea, “We need safe­ty. OS­HA has to come and in­spect every­thing to en­sure that safe­ty is a top pri­or­i­ty on the job.”

Speak­ing about the oth­er in­ci­dents of job in­juries, she said, “The right thing is the right thing. We tend to sweep things un­der the car­pet and en­gage in a blame game in Trinidad. WASA is sup­posed to con­duct an in­ves­ti­ga­tion. My son was in the trade union, and the union­ists should come in and ques­tion WASA about their ac­tions.”

Grant-Roberts said her grand­chil­dren cher­ished their fa­ther and now have to grow up with­out him. 

Eti­enne had been a dai­ly paid work­er at WASA for 18 years and Grant-Roberts said he had been pro­mot­ed to Crafts­man 1 just last month. 

“My son had as­pi­ra­tions of buy­ing a house and set­tling down with his fam­i­ly. He al­ways want­ed to see his chil­dren grow up his way. He had big dreams for his fam­i­ly,” she added.

WASA CEO: We will con­duct a com­pre­hen­sive and im­par­tial in­ves­ti­ga­tion

In re­sponse, WASA’s Chief Ex­ec­u­tive Of­fi­cer Kelvin Ro­main af­firmed WASA’s com­mit­ment to con­duct­ing a com­pre­hen­sive and im­par­tial in­ves­ti­ga­tion. He as­sured the griev­ing fam­i­ly that WASA would pro­vide sup­port, and em­ploy­ees present at the job site have al­ready be­gun to re­ceive coun­selling.

Too many work­place deaths–In­dars­ingh

For­mer labour min­is­ter Rudranath In­dars­ingh has called for the res­ig­na­tion of Labour Min­is­ter Stephen Mc Clashie say­ing too many work­place deaths are oc­cur­ring un­der his watch. 

In­dars­ingh’s call came fol­low­ing the death of WASA work­er Kern Eti­enne who suc­cumbed to in­juries af­ter be­ing buried alive at a job­site on Sun­day.

Ex­press­ing con­do­lences, In­dars­ingh said, “It pains my heart to know that noth­ing could have been done to save this young fa­ther of two.”

Say­ing there was an alarm­ing in­crease in work­place deaths dur­ing Mc Clashie’s three-year tenure, In­dars­ingh re­count­ed the trag­ic loss­es of Fyzal Kur­ban, Kaz­im Ali Jr, Rishi Na­gas­sar, Yusuf Hen­ry, and Al­lan Lane Ramkissoon, all of whom per­ished in var­i­ous work­place ac­ci­dents at Paria and Ni­Quan. In­dars­ingh ac­cused the Gov­ern­ment of ne­glect­ing the wel­fare and safe­ty of the work­ing class. 

He said ris­ing liv­ing costs, in­creas­es in fu­el prices, prop­er­ty tax­es, elec­tric­i­ty rates, and es­ca­lat­ing crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty have all im­pact­ed neg­a­tive­ly on the lives of work­ers. 

The UNC MP ex­pressed con­cern that em­ploy­ers were forced to for­go safe­ty mea­sures for their em­ploy­ees due to fi­nan­cial dif­fi­cul­ties, which, in turn, put work­ers’ lives at risk. In­dars­ingh ex­pressed scep­ti­cism about OS­HA’s track record in is­su­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tion re­ports for pre­vi­ous in­ci­dents (Paria and Ni­Quan tragedies) and called for trans­paren­cy re­gard­ing the in­di­vid­u­als ap­point­ed to serve on the in­ves­tiga­tive com­mit­tee.