Virgo renews call for end to contract work

WESTERN BUREAU:

Colin Virgo, assistant general secretary of the Bustamante Industrial Trade Union (BITU), used the occasion of the annual civic ceremony to mark the birthday of National Hero Sir Alexander Bustamante on Tuesday to again raise concerns about the injustice of contract work.

“If Sir Alexander Bustamante was alive here today and see what so many employers ... are doing, in fact, abusing with contract work, he would have bared his chest once more and say, ‘Shoot me’,” said Virgo at the event held in Blenheim, Hanover, as he referenced an oft-repeated tale of Busatamante standing up for workers’ rights at a protest.

Bustamante, the first prime minister of independent Jamaica, also founded the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) and the BITU.

Virgo said the recent passage of Hurricane Melissa, which resulted in the dislocation of numerous contract workers who went home empty-handed because their working arrangement does not include benefits enjoyed by full-time employees, showed the injustice of the practice.

“A contract worker cannot get a mortgage, cannot get a car loan, and I do not even know if Courts (furniture store) would lease you their furniture if you are a contract worker,” said Virgo. “It is wrong.”

He noted that Jamaica became a signatory to the International Labour Organization (ILO) Convention on Decent Work “from the days of Sir Alexander as one of the leaders of the nation”, stating that the contract work system was denying workers of union representation.

“Nothing is wrong with workers being unionised,” he said. “It must be easier to sit down with one person on behalf of 100 or 1,000 than to try to negotiate separately with several hundred or several thousand persons.

“If you, as the employer, know that you are not doing anything wrong. If you, as the employer, know that you are not breaking any law, you should not have anything to worry about in your workers being unionised,” he added.

Over recent years, the use of contract work has been a thorny issue, with workers resorting to protests to press for better wages, better working conditions, and job security. Last year, several major hotels were hit by protest action as workers took their grouses public.

Speaking in Parliament recently, Andrea Purkiss, the opposition spokesperson for tourism, described the contract-work system as unfair, unjust, and of no worthwhile assistance to the Jamaican workforce.

editorial@gleanerjm.com