| …this time to support injured workersMore than 500 workers from various sections of the Blairmont Estate took industrial action yesterday in solidarity with two of their colleagues who were injured on the job in March and who, up to date, have not received their benefits from the National Insurance Scheme (NIS).The majority of workers from the Factory, Mill Dock,China Wholesale Shoes Free Shipping Worldwide, Mechanical Tillage and Field Workshop of the estate did not work on Monday and the strike action is scheduled to continue until the two workers are compensated by NIS.Having an accident on the job means that the workers would be sent on leave and they would be paid by NIS instead of the normal payment by the sugar corporation. The two men have not received any monies from NIS. They added that they have not received any salary too from GuySuCo (due to them being on medical leave).The workers displaying their injured fingers; Umrow (L) and HussainThe corporation,Cheap Shoes Websites, in a move to bring an end to the strike action and get the workers back on the job, released some monies from its own coffers to the two affected workers but the workers have said that is not enough.Nipaul Omrow, 46, and Nazeer Hussain, 40, both of Number Four,Cheap Shoes China Free Shipping, Blairmont Settlement, West Bank Berbice had their fingers severed and crushed while working on March 5 and March 9, last respectively. According to Omrow who has been with the Guyana Sugar Corporation (GuySuCo) for about thirty years, he was attempting to join two punts with an 18-inch length of chain (instead of three feet). “When the dump lifted the punt, the wave brought back the water punt and it slammed into my finger and cut off the one joint”.He has since been at home and off the job and has not received his days’ pay from NIS.Umrow is perturbed over the matter since he knows that he pays his NIS contributions to his employer. The man has been running back and forth to NIS and GuySuCo, trying to sort the matter out but claims that he is being given a run- around.“First they (NIS Fort Wellington) said I gotta submit a schedule and we reached the Field Secretary and I called Georgetown NIS and the Manager (of NIS) told me that the schedule was there but that GuySuCo did not pay our monies (contributions)”. The company, he stated, has refuted the allegations.Omrow is lamenting his expenses, including the mortgage on his home, bills and a family. “Either GuySuCo is telling lies or NIS…I want all of them with the union and let us solve this matter because we ain’t know who telling lies and who telling truth.“Everything is being done over the phone– nobody a face nobody, so the parties need to come to the table and let us hear what happen”, he stated.Hussain,Wholesale Shoes China Free Shipping, also a chain- man, and employed with the industry for 22 years, was performing the same task in March and had his left index finger badly crushed while he was attempting “to join the punts”. He noted that the chain is very short, “and damaged my finger– crushed it- naturally crushed, damaged”. He was rushed to the New Amsterdam Hospital.“We running all over for our monies. We handed in schedules…and they telling us today, tomorrow, today, tomorrow”. He appeared at the NIS office at Fort Wellington and “them tell us until the estate pays NIS the money, they cannot release the money for us– the estate owe them (NIS)”.“Me ain’t got money right now. I get loan to pay and gotta send my children to school and I built my house the other day”.Hussain stated that other persons are currently in similar situations whereby they are awaiting benefits from the NIS and have not been able to collect same. He is laying blame on the sugar company for not submitting their contributions.“Estate is slack because we contribute to NIS and them know to cut our money every week and month (to take out NIS)…why can’t we get our money?”The workers are also questioning the fact that if the NIS cannot find contributions for them for the past months,Carolina Panthers Team Store Online, what has happened to the previous years’ contributions?The Guyana Agricultural and General Workers Union (GAWU),Wholesale Football Jerseys, in a press statement on Monday, stated “According to a source in the NIS,Nike Sb Shoes China, payments were not made to the two workers because the Guyana Sugar Corporation (Guysuco) is in arrears with contribution remittances.“The Union demands that the NIS immediately pay the workers their due benefits without any further delay in keeping with this legal obligation”. |
