Minister in the Ministry of Social Protection Simona Broomes is seeking a meeting with officials of urban business support organizations “as early as next week” to engage them in discussions arising out of her snap visits to several business houses along Regent Street, during which she unearthed “widespread and entirely unacceptable transgressions of labour laws” many of which extend into “human rights transgressions.”
In an exclusive interview with Stabroek Business on Tuesday, Broomes said she will be putting her concerns regarding labour transgressions to entities like the Private Sector Commission (PSC) and the Georgetown Chamber of Commerce and Industry (GCCI) “since I expect that they would want to be part of ensuring that the transgressions are corrected in the shortest possible time.” The minister said that she would be putting “my concerns and the workers’ concerns” on the table and asking the organisations to help her correct the situation.
Asked by Stabroek Business to provide her assessment of just how bad the situation was, Broomes said, “A great deal of it is abusive. What I saw suggests that in parts of the private sector there is absolutely no employer respect for the welfare of employees.”
Broomes told Stabroek Business that while she had seen enough to make up her own mind as to just how bad the situation was, she had also secured a “very strong sense” that some of the workers had become so thoroughly intimidated by the environment that they were afraid to talk. “In those instances where we were able to take some workers aside they were more talkative and we learnt a great deal more,” she added.
On Wednesday, Broomes outlined to this newspaper a slew of what she called “instances of exploitation of workers and blatant breaches of the law including non-payment of workers’ NIS contributions to the scheme, discrepancies between amounts paid to workers as wages and amounts they were required to acknowledge, inhospitable working conditions including in some instances an absence of rest rooms.” She also said that there was “a general absence of records that ought to be kept under the law.” Broomes explained that in the absence of such records it might be difficult to properly investigate claims by employees that might arise in the future. “The problem is that we might find that there are instances in which as far as some employers are concerned persons who have been working with them for years simply do not exist,” she added.
She wanted it to be known that some of the glaring cases of labour transgressions were to be found in commercial outlets being run by “foreign nationals including Chinese nationals.” She said some of them appeared decidedly uncomfortable engaging her. But she said there should be no discomfort amongst employers “arising out of me seeking to do a job. My concern is that the laws of the land are respected and that people get a fair deal. That is my understanding of what this administration wants, what President Granger wants and what the subject Minister for Social Protection wants. I intend to do what it takes under the law to ensure that those requirements are met.”
Broomes told Stabroek Business that while she had “no appetite” for making a “political song and dance” over the issue of respect for labour laws, she believed that it was difficult for the prevailing situation to exist “unless it had been either encouraged or ignored by the previous administration. What we have inherited is embarrassing. The truth is that from what I saw yesterday [Tuesday] we are in really bad shape.”
What was once the Ministry of Labour (now re-named the Ministry of Social Protection) had come under considerable public criticism for failing to pursue its oversight responsibilities to ensure the effective workplace implementation of labour laws. Broomes told Stabroek Business that she understood that the corrective measures which the Social Protection Ministry has undertaken will require a greater human resource capacity which she said will be met through both recruitment and training.
