Female guards  suffer most

…Labour Ministry source

Reports of transgressions by Security Guard Services most of which have to do with discrepancies in the wages and salaries of their employees continue to be made to the Ministry of Labour at the rate of “at least one a week” according to a senior Ministry functionary. “You can say without contradiction that complaints against Guard Services are made by Security Guards every week,” the source told Stabroek Business.

And according to the Ministry official women, who comprise the majority of the guards employed by the Services “suffer most” since apart from the routine complaints about money-related matters many of them are also acutely affected by their conditions of work. “What concerns us as much as anything else is the fact that female guards must often work on sites where there is no guard hut or no other form of shelter from the elements. There is also the problem of a lack of access to water and sanitary facilities. Female guards, in many cases, must leave their sites to seek those facilities elsewhere,” the source said. The Ministry of Labour official told Stabroek Business that the Security Services had been made aware that it was their responsibility to provide those facilities. There are cases in which the clients make those facilities available but we look to the service providers to do so,” the official said.

Meanwhile the official told Stabroek Business that the Labour Ministry is often required to provide representation for Guards who complain about being underpaid or being denied entitlements altogether. “What we have found is that while the daily rate of pay is $100.00 there are frequent cases in which guards are paid less than that amount. There are also a number of cases in which guards are either not paid their overtime or are not paid what they are actually entitled to,” the source said. “Vacation leave is another concern. There are cases in which attempts are made to deny guards their leave altogether or else, not to grant them leave with pay. These are all issues which we have had to investigate,” the official added.

The disclosures by the Labour Ministry official come in the wake of complaints that have been made to this newspaper by security guards who claim various forms of employee exploitation and complain about what they say is the slow pace of the investigatory mechanisms. Over the past month this newspaper received two separate reports of sexual harassment by female guards though the Labour Ministry official could recall no such reports being made. However, the official said that such reports could not be dismissed entirely since it was likely that female guards who were victims of sexual harassment may be reluctant to make official reports for fear of reprisals.

Asked whether the Ministry is satisfied with the outcomes of its interventions with employers the source said that while this was generally the case there were cases in which matters have had to be taken to the courts. “As a general rule these employers are concerned about resort to the courts and we have been able to persuade many of them to settle matters out of court.”