Aggrieved security guards seeking to bring one or another complaint against their employer to public attention have frequently sought to engage this newspaper. Over time some of their concerns have been investigated though we have not always published the outcomes of those investigations. In a disturbingly high number of cases, however, we have found their concerns to be merited. It is true, for example, that some guard services deduct NIS and PAYE contributions from guards’ salaries and simply neglect to pay those contributions in to the relevant agencies. We have, in the past, published the names of some of those guard services that are in arrears of employees’ national insurance and PAYE remittances to the tune of tens of millions of dollars. Unpaid contributions mean that guards must often wait for protracted periods before they receive payment on medical claims made to the Scheme.
It is also true that some guard services devise schemes designed to deny guards their full salaries. There are cases too in which guards who work beyond their stipulated hours only receive a fraction of the additional pay to which they are entitled. This particular scam is linked to a wider racket that involves the assigning of fewer guards to sites than are set out in the contracts with clients even though the guard service claims payment for the full complement of guards. Since the actual number of guards assigned is fewer than required to provide adequate cover guards must frequently work beyond their normal shifts without full compensation, sometimes without any compensation for those additional hours. Here, both the client and the guard are short-changed.
We have also investigated reports of padded payrolls and ‘ghost’ guards, trumped up disciplinary measures, arbitrary and illegal salary deductions and claims by guards, particularly on instances of physical harassment, including sexual harassment.
There are good and bad employers in every sector. Somehow, though, one gets the impression that greed, callousness and an insensitivity to the welfare of workers have become commonplace in the security service sector. Some of these transgressions are reported to and investigated by the Ministry of Labour. Many go unreported since some guards are fearful of reprisals that include dismissal from their jobs.
We do not know enough about the recent protest in Berbice by a group of security guards to pronounce authoritatively on the matter. We noted, however, that the vast majority of the protestors, perhaps all of them were women. More than half of the security guards recruited by guard services are women aged roughly between 18 and 45. Many, perhaps most of these are single parents with school-aged children and with no other source of income. Some admit that they become security guards out of extreme necessity, the necessity to support several children in circumstances where they are mostly not qualified for any other job. Guard services are only too well aware of how desperately these impoverished women need to work to support their children and it is this knowledge that is widely believed to underpin the exploitative practices. The delinquent guard services give little thought to the fact that these women must, in many cases, virtually abandon their parental responsibilities in order to meet the demands of their job. Infants must often be placed in the care of neighbours or older siblings. Children, still far too young to fend for themselves must often sleep alone at nights. The risk of abuse and exploitation is ever present but the mothers have no choice; and however tough and determined these women may be, the long hours and the exposure to the elements often take a terrible toll on their health.
Guard services do not countenance union representation. On the whole, their harsh work regimes cannot withstand serious industrial relations scrutiny. There is the well-documented case of a security firm that is managed by two trade unions whose track record for mindfulness of worker welfare is probably among the most unflattering in the sector. The files of the Ministry of Labour are teeming with complaints against guard services and the courts continue to entertain private litigation by security guards against their employers as well as cases made by NIS for the non-payment of employee contributions. Settlement, whether in the Ministry of Labour or in the courts is invariably a protracted matter.
The problem goes beyond the guard services themselves. The Government of Guyana is by far the biggest client of these guard services. Since 2000 when two trade unions were allowed to establish a guard service and were literally handed a multi-million dollar contract to provide security services for schools, hospitals, government ministries, regional offices, pump stations and other state-run sites, the security service sector has become increasingly lucrative and the evidence of growing greed and avarice as manifested in an assortment of illegal and dishonest practices designed both to defraud the public treasury and to deny security guards their just deserts has become more difficult to hide. Interestingly, while guard services are charged with securing important state installations, the knowledge and experience of their proprietors in security matters is, to say the least, questionable and there is little indication of any ongoing training among most guard services designed to enhance the competence of security guards, many of whom are recruited without any formal training in the first place.
There has been at least one case in recent years where government has moved to rescind contracts for reasons associated with sub-standard service provision. What has not changed is a seeming official indifference to wider excesses of those guard services that continues to attract employee charges of unconscionable work schedules, dictatorial disciplinary regimes and various other Machiavellian schemes designed to cheat their already impoverished security guards out of their meagre wages and scams that compromise guards’ access to their NIS benefits.
There is no evidence that officially expressed concern over the welfare of women and children living in poverty has extended into any kind of robust official action to curb the excesses of rogue guard services. Apart from the legal enforcement mechanisms which the government has at its disposal it can use its clout as a result of its contract awards to demand higher standards of respect for the rights of their employees, the protection of female security guards and general transparency and accountability in their operations; and though we can recall no proven cases of this particular charge, it is widely asserted that guard services are able to persist in their deviant behaviour on account of collusion with client representatives that are underpinned by corrupt underhand arrangements.
If government’s stated policies that have to do with protection of workers rights and safeguarding the rights of women and children are to have any real meaning, the authorities need look no further than the private security sector to find frequent and glaring instances of transgressions that invariably occur, more often than not, without sanction. Whatever new legislation is envisaged to govern the operations of the private security sector, regulations must take account of the victims of the tyranny of the rogue services in their midst and of the need to fashion sanctioning mechanisms that are transparent, efficient and expeditious so life can be made more bearable for a category of workers who, even in the best of circumstances, make among the greatest sacrifices for the least rewards.
