-to protest anticipated cut in number of masons
WORKERS attached to the construction project of the Linden Hospital Complex have downed tools to protest an anticipated cut in the number of masons by the contracting firm.
The majority of the nearly 50 Linden-based workers from R. Bassoo and Sons, contractors for the construction of the state of the art new $1.2B Linden Hospital Complex, in anticipation of a cut in the number of masons presently on the job staged a sit-in, withdrawing their services and demanding a fulfillment of agreement following a strike late last year.

However, Senior Project Engineer Ms. Heidi Gillett told this newspaper that the replacement of local masons may not be necessary, but admitted there will be need for more special skills to deal with such areas as air conditioning, electrical installation and specialised systems to be installed at the modern complex.

According to reports workers were told that there is to be a cut in the number of masons from 25 to 12 as the major portion of work has been completed. But the Linden workers fear that when they are cut off, masons from out of town will be taken on to complete the very work they are capable of doing.

The striking workers said last week that the project engineer told them that the site is grossly overstaffed and as of this week, there would only be need for twelve masons, meaning that almost half the number of masons would be sent home.
However, the workers agreed that there will be a time when this will be necessary and a cut in the number of masons and workforce in general will be in order, but are contending that presently there is massive work still to be done and are claiming that their services will be needed at this time as they speculate that the work will last until the end of this year.

They said it was expected that during yesterday those workers who will go and those to stay would have been made known but they were not in favour of such a decision and took the decision to sit in.

“We decided that we really cannot tolerate that because it is not a case whereby there is no work for the masons. It is just that they want to bring in their own people from Georgetown.”

In light if this, the workers have moved to have officers from the Ministry of Labour address their concerns.

They, however, admitted: “We the workers are aware that in construction when work is coming down to a close definitely some people have got to go. But this a different case whereby the building on the outside it is only looking as though it is complete, when you go inside it is massive work inside. The building is no way near completion. As a matter of fact it may be close to December before you can say it is complete.”

This matter has also brought to light other aspects of concerns for the Linden workers as they said they will not be returning to work until a fulfillment of their previous agreement with the management is looked at.

“Added to that there are some grouses we were putting on the back burner because they bring in new management and we decided that we would give the new management some support. As you are aware, towards the bottom of last year we had a strike and representatives from the Labour Department came and we made certain demands and the company had to sign to those demands that we made. To date there is only one thing that we were able to get from about ten points which is a slight raise in our salaries and all the rest have not been addressed,” the workers charged.

They claim also that the contracting firm has reneged on the payment of National Insurance Scheme (NIS) for its workers and pay for the first three days of sick leave to which workers are entitled. This they say is not happening and additionally they have not received retroactive pay for taxes paid even though some are below the new tax threshold and have paid taxes from January to now without getting their remittances.

On the question of the current progress of work, Civil Works Manager Dr Charles Garrett yesterday reported that the complex is 74 per cent complete. The new Linden Hospital Complex began construction on August 17, 2006 and was expected to be completed by February 17, 2008.

The step taken by the locals came in wake of the claim that recently some fifteen masons were sent home and ten others from outside of Linden were brought in to replace them to do the very work of those sent away which they felt was unfair.

Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Linden Hospital Complex Mr. Gordon I Gumbs told this newspaper that while the contractor has fallen back on the scheduled completion of the new complex which was February 17, this year, steps were taken to extend the deadline. He opined that the contractor from reports had reached a point where he wanted to reduce the amount of staff on the job.

According to Gumbs, a contractor has the right to decide at what part of the work he will scale down, but promised to follow up the most recent development after initially being told of the strike by one of his officers.