Several labour violations and poor working conditions were unearthed yesterday when Junior Social Protec-tion Minister Simona Broomes and officials from the Labour Department conducted a surprise inspection of stores in New Amsterdam.
Broomes and her team patrolled through Main Road and Pitt Street and inspected several private entities, during which a number of violations of workers’ rights were uncovered. It was discovered that several entities force their employees to work beyond the 40-hour work week and do not pay for the overtime.
“It is beyond my imagination what is happening in Berbice. I never ever expected it to be this bad… Workers are working for 14, 12, 10 and 9 hours per day with no overtime and [five] minutes lunch. They don’t have any leave… Security guards are working without any guard huts and standing in the rain… I think this is ridiculous,”
