Still no money for quarry’s severed workers

Former employees of bankrupt construction firm Black Bess Quarry Limited are slowly losing hope of ever receiving any of the thousands owed them since January when the company started to fold.

As the COVID-19 situation threatens to cripple the country’s construction sector, the final wave of workers who are scheduled to go home on April 15 fear they will suffer the same fate.

But as bills pile up, at least one of the already laid-off workers has threatened to enlist the services of an attorney to help secure the outstanding monies along with key salary deductions, which he claims have not been paid.

Murdoch Johnson, a former union president at Black Bess said financial institutions have been on the heels of ex-workers whose salary deductions were not being paid by the company.

“I plan to step up another notch and get an attorney to help us deal with this matter because we aren’t being treated right,” Johnson told Barbados TODAY.

“Our deductions never went to the institutions or anything like that. One man had to go there and keep noise for his car payments and he was able to get his cheque but other guys have mortgages to pay and haven’t been able to get through,” he added.

With Coronavirus fears increasing, the former employee who has been unemployed since January says it doesn’t make sense to look for work at this time and therefore expressed frustration that the company had not made progress on the pressing matter.

In addition to the deductions are payments in lieu of notice, productivity bonuses and outstanding vacation money, which have not been paid to workers almost four months after the company folded.

In early March, Chief Executive Officer Wayne Manning told Barbados TODAY that the issue was out of his hands and would be turned over to a trustee appointed to liquidate the company’s assets and pay its outstanding debts. After discussions with the Supervisor of Insolvency, the CEO was hopeful that a trustee would be installed the following week.

Three weeks later, there appears to have been no positive movement and calls to Manning went unanswered.

“This is more than three months that we have been sent home. A trustee should have been in place by now. It feels like these people are playing games with us,” Johnson added.

A handful of administrative employees were asked to continue until April 15, which coincidentally is the date when workers in non-essential professions including construction will be returning to work after a two-week partial national shutdown.

But one of the corporate workers who spoke with Barbados TODAY said the COVID-19 pandemic has dashed hopes of him receiving any outstanding money from the company on his final day of work.

“I don’t think a trustee has been appointed and I’m beginning to think that none is going to come either. If a trustee did not show up in that three-month period from January to March, I don’t see them coming now. That was my feeling from the beginning,” said the worker, who revealed that his colleagues, without notice, received just three-quarters of their salary for the month of March.

On January 7, 2020, staff received a memo informing them of the company’s decision to file for bankruptcy based on its failure to turn a profit for many years.

However, Black Bess Construction Ltd and RM Investment Limited, both members of the Black Bess Group of Companies continued to offer similar services as the defunct Black Bess Quarry Ltd.

Laid-off employees who desperately needed work reportedly accepted less favourable contracts. kareemsmith@barbadostoday.bb