Dear Editor,
It is a vexation to the soul to confirm what one always believed with respect to abuse of workers’ rights. When Junior Minister of Social Protection Simona Broomes visited several Regent Street business establishments on Tuesday, September 8, much evidence was found of blatant violations of the law. I trust some court action will be pursued by this new government. The workers could not depend on the old government (Ramotar administration) that always attempted to brand itself as pro-working class. The proof of the pudding is in the eating. How can you call yourself pro-working class when for years under your government these Regent Street workers endured so many abuses, yet your so-called working class government did so very little for them. For the PPP, many of these workers on Regent Street have only one value – the vote. On elections day many of these poor workers are corralled to the polling station with messages of fear to brainwash them into voting for the PPP. Well today the grand coalition of six political parties has come to the rescue of these long-suffering workers at the bottom of the pay scale. It matters not, if many of them voted PPP; they are Guyanese first. Well done Minister Broomes! I hope Gina does a full feature on these abuses and spreads the word in rural Guyana about what this government is really doing to help the poor and the working class.
In the Minister’s words – “massive violations of occupational health and safety standards were discovered”, but there were more. Worker rights and labour laws were also violated. Can you imagine in 2015 a worker who worked for 6-whole years was only offered paid leave for maternity as a one-off favour to her by her employer? In Guyana there is the Leave with Pay Act No 6 of 1995, which clearly outlined that “every worker must be granted one day paid leave for every completed month of employment”. That young woman is due 72 days leave with pay – simple. Yet her unprincipled boss violated her human rights. Where is the Guyana Human Rights Association? Has it gone into hibernation on these violations or is it only a press release tiger? Where is the WPO (women’s arm of the PPP)? Did the WPO do a Houdini on these violations over the years although most of the shop front associates on Regent Street are young women from rural Guyana where the bulk of their support is derived? This is the hypocrisy of the system ‒ come support me, but when you are in a mess, you are on your own.
The law is clear: even if you work for less than a full day for a complete month, you are entitled to pro-rated pay. Thus there is no getting around this situation by gerrymandering around the law.
In 2015, we cannot be paying workers US$164 per month when the legal minimum wage is approximately US$240 per month.
We cannot have legal citizens of Guyana working off the books and hence not entitled to NIS benefits. Where are the NIS Inspectors? It is time for stage two of this exercise – unionization. Unions like CCWU or NACCIE have to step up to the plate and unionise these workers.
In conclusion – well done Minister Broomes and keep it up. Thank you for letting all the oppressed workers in Guyana know they have a friend in power, be they prostitutes or shop front associates. I trust she will do a follow up visit to Regent Street in 6 months’ time to ensure that the working conditions of these workers have improved and if not, take some of these business owners to court. Enough is enough!
Yours faithfully,
Sase Singh
