RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Es­sen­tial ser­vices ground to a halt yes­ter­day as over 300 dai­ly-paid work­ers from the Pe­nal/Debe Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion (PDRC) protest­ed un­paid al­lowances, leav­ing garbage un­col­lect­ed and roads in dis­re­pair.

From 7 am, the work­ers gath­ered out­side the Debe sub-of­fice hold­ing up plac­ards which read: “Pay Our Al­lowances Now.” 

Ja­son Gor­don, pres­i­dent of the south­ern di­vi­sion of the Na­tion­al Union of Gov­ern­ment and Fed­er­at­ed Work­ers (NUGFW), said work­ers com­pris­ing of san­i­ta­tion work­ers, dri­vers, fore­men, su­per­vi­sors, labour­ers and ad­min­is­tra­tive staff were owed over $700,000 and many would face a bleak Christ­mas if this was not paid.

Vice Pres­i­dent of the NUGFW South­ern Di­vi­sion Bri­an Julien de­scribed the toll on work­ers and their house­holds.

“Peo­ple tu­ition fees to pay, light bill, wa­ter bill and rent. This is un­fair be­cause these work­ers haven’t been paid for the en­tire year,” he added.

He said the NUGFW had a meet­ing with the ad­min­is­tra­tion and was told by the PDRC chair­man, Gow­tam Ma­haraj, that the Cen­tral Gov­ern­ment has not re­leased any funds to pay al­lowance.

“PDRC is the on­ly cor­po­ra­tion where al­lowances have not been paid. Work­ers have fam­i­lies to sup­port, gro­ceries to buy, and bills pil­ing up,” he said.

Julien said the ne­glect of dai­ly-paid work­ers is ev­i­dent. “We’re dri­vers, rollers, fore­men, san­i­ta­tion work­ers, and labour­ers, but no­body cares about us. Scav­eng­ing has stopped, and the road sec­tion has no ma­te­ri­als to work with. We can­not take this any­more.”

Ritchie Deo, a shop stew­ard said he left an emer­gency meet­ing feel­ing dis­heart­ened.

“The chair­man tried to make head­way, but there’s no mon­ey. We didn’t get any con­fir­ma­tion this will be re­solved. Af­ter the meet­ing, it was clear we had to let peo­ple know what’s hap­pen­ing,” he said.

Work­ers fear the sit­u­a­tion will es­ca­late.

Griev­ance Of­fi­cer Keshrie Kissoon said, “Two fi­nan­cial years, and they owe $700,000? Im­bert hasn’t ad­dressed out­stand­ing ar­rears to work­ers. They’re play­ing with fam­i­lies. I hope this protest doesn’t have to go in­to round two, but we are not stop­ping here.”

As­sis­tant Sec­re­tary Jil­lian Williams of the NUGFW south­ern di­vi­sion said work­ers have en­dured enough.

“Al­lowances, over­time, and trav­el mileage are not be­ing paid. With­out dai­ly-paid work­ers, every­thing comes to a halt.”

Williams al­so crit­i­cised the treat­ment of union rep­re­sen­ta­tives.

“The ad­min­is­tra­tion frus­trates us when we rep­re­sent the work­ers. We’re tired of this and de­mand re­spect for the union.”

Chair­man of the PDRC, Gow­tam Ma­haraj, said the cor­po­ra­tion was ex­pe­ri­enc­ing fi­nan­cial strain.

“Even though al­lo­ca­tions were an­nounced, the gov­ern­ment has not re­leased funds to pay work­ers but we sym­pa­thise with the work­ers,” Ma­haraj said.

At­tempts to con­tact Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter Faris Al-Rawi for com­ment were un­suc­cess­ful as they did not re­spond to calls and mes­sages.

The work­ers vowed to con­tin­ue their protests.