Workers attached to City Hall on Thursday staged another public demonstration to air their concerns regarding unpaid salaries and other benefits by the Mayor and City Council.
“No money, no work!” and “We fed up of the same thing over and over!” were the cries of the employees as they demanded their salaries.
This is in light of the constant excuses offered by the Georgetown Municipality, which has said that as a result of the delay in a number of projects, sums of money which were meant for the payment of salaries are yet to materialize.
According to the protesters, City Hall workers expect to be paid by the 26th of
A section of the protesters calling for their salaries in front of City Hall
every month, but despite November being well underway, they are still awaiting their salaries for October.
“This is not right. We are working month to month. We cannot be getting October salary late in November. This is not right. What will happen to December?” disgruntled workers relayed.
City Hall on Thursday promised immediate action to remedy the situation; but despite such assurances, the workers were not convinced. Another protester lashed out at the City Hall administration, saying, “They might say that yeah, but tomorrow they will come and you gone hear, ‘Oh continue working, continue working’.”
Enraged by empty promises, the woman further contended, “I got Courts to pay. Courts ringing down me phone…When you gat to pay late fee, Council ain’t giving you that extra late fee money.”
Meanwhile, others commenting on the deplorable situation argued that, “This is unfair. We working whole month. You gotta be sweating, collecting cuss from them stall owners in the market to collect Council rates, and you still can’t get you money. Them thing this could be fair?”
Adding to that, the workers are calling for other financial benefits, such as deductions for payments to the National Insurance Scheme (NIS) as well as installments to their credit unions.
At the forefront of the public protest early Thursday morning was the former Deputy Mayor of Georgetown, Sherod Duncan.
Duncan underlined that City Hall and its workers are constantly under distress, and he had no hesitation in pinning the blame on the poor leadership of Town Clerk Royston King.
“We owing our solid waste contractors over $400 million is a direct result of the Town Clerk’s stewardship of the City’s finances. How much more can we go along with the Town Clerk like that? When you have an organization that is failing, you don’t fire the employees, you fire the management; and the Town Clerk is the head of the management of the City and the Town Clerk must go,” he went on to say, calling for King’s head.
The protest on Thursday marked the second time for the week that the City Hall workers have downed their tools and taken to the street to demand the payments of their salaries along with their hard-earned benefits.
Given that this issue continues to persist almost on a monthly basis, the workers have pledged to prolong their public demonstrations until their concerns have been addressed.
