AN­GE­LO JE­DI­DAH

an­ge­lo.je­didi­ah@guardian.co.tt

Work­ers at­tached to the Ch­aguara­mas De­vel­op­ment Au­thor­i­ty (CDA) who say they have been forced to work in poor and un­safe con­di­tions for the past few years are de­mand­ing change.

Field work­ers protest­ed out­side the CDA head of­fice, at Air­ways Road, Ch­aguara­mas, yes­ter­day morn­ing, claim­ing the Au­thor­i­ty con­tin­ues to ig­nore their pleas.

Ac­cord­ing to Na­tion­al Union of Gov­ern­ment and Fed­er­at­ed Work­ers rep­re­sen­ta­tive, Damien Alexan­der, for years work­ers have com­plained about the field work­ers’ di­lap­i­dat­ed hous­ing fa­cil­i­ty which they say is in­fest­ed with rats, snakes and bats. The preva­lence of snake­skin dec­o­rat­ing un­sta­ble roof­ing is a re­al­i­ty work­ers say they have been forced to deal with for many years.

“We’re reach­ing the point now, enough is enough. We need bet­ter fa­cil­i­ties. We need them to do what it is they’re sup­posed to do as man­age­ment in or­der for us as work­ers to ac­com­plish what it is we need to ac­com­plish,” Alexan­der said.

Em­ploy­ees claimed that last Fri­day the ceil­ing in the kitchen col­lapsed and they were forced to clean it up them­selves and re­con­nect elec­tri­cal wires to en­sure light­ing. Al­though they re­port­ed the prob­lems to man­age­ment, the work­ers claimed they have not re­spond­ed or at­tempt­ed to vis­it the near­by fa­cil­i­ty.

They al­so claimed the CDA failed to en­sure pay­ment of all out­stand­ing monies and nev­er ful­filled plans to up­grade their med­ical plan.

“They are play­ing us for games. We are talk­ing about since 2013, a di­rect breach of the col­lec­tive agree­ment. We are ask­ing for them to hold up their end of the col­lec­tive agree­ment. Sick leave bonus­es, the ar­rears mon­ey ow­ing to work­ers,” em­ploy­ee Stephen Richard­son said.

The work­ers said they plan to con­tin­ue to protest but will not slow down their jobs in the main­te­nance and de­vel­op­ment of the west­ern penin­su­la.

“We want to be on the right side be­cause what man­age­ment looks for is for us to slip up so that they can use that against the work­ers and we will not give them that priv­i­lege,” Richard­son said.

In a press re­lease, the CDA ex­pressed sur­prise at the ac­tion tak­en by the work­ers but said the con­cerns raised are be­ing ad­dressed.