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Plea for assistance with funeral

by Anesta Henry
3 min read
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A relative of the C.O. Williams Construction employee who collapsed and died on the job three weeks ago is seeking the public’s help to pay for his funeral, saying that with no savings to draw from and no assistance from the company he worked with for more than 30 years, they were at a loss as to how he would be put to rest.

The plea has come from Sabrina Ashton, stepdaughter of 62-year-old Owen Tyrone Gunning who died suddenly on July 30, on a construction site at Watts Village Road, St George where he was assigned the task as flagman to regulate the flow of vehicular traffic.

She said neither she nor her unemployed mother, Yvette Gunning, who was hospitalised following her husband’s passing, have the money to bury him.

“We don’t have it so we are appealing to the public for help. The money is to pay for the funeral, it ain’t for me, it ain’t for my mother, it is to bury the man. The donations can go straight to Two Sons Funeral Home. Even if you got $2, donate it because there ain’t no money…. If you could donate a little $5, $10, anything, we would take it because there ain’t no money,” Ashton said.

A funeral director has presented a $10,000 quote for the burial.

“Where my mother getting 10 grand from? My mother don’t work no way and this man don’t have savings at all. His family ain’t bringing a cent. Everybody looking at ‘oh he will get money from C.O Williams’, well C.O Williams ain’t giving we no money,” she said.

The single mother said she called the Human Resources Department at C.O. Williams and enquired whether the company would be willing to assist with the burial, but was told they do not assist with funeral expenses.

“I asked about the two weeks’ pay that he has on the books and they said the wife got to come and I said ‘lady, she in hospital, how she will come?’ and she put down the phone in my ears. I don’t know that is how you speak to people; you don’t have common courtesy in the country no more? He worked for C.O Williams for over 30 years, though,” Ashton said.

She added that while she has been advised that companies are not required by law to assist with funeral costs for employees, she believes the laws should be changed to include such a requirement.

“I understand that a company is not obligated to give a worker anything, but that is not right. That is a law that belongs somewhere in the 1800s because that is foolishness. My stepfather was always the first body on the job on mornings and the last body to leave on a night and you trying to tell me them can’t even give the wife a wreath, a postcard, nothing?”

Ashton said she had spoken with a Samantha Nurse in the Human Resource Department at C.O. Williams. When Barbados TODAY contacted the company, Nurse said she did not know Ashton, and she would not comment on either her accusations or Gunning’s death.
(anestahenry@barbadostoday.bb)

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