CTUSAB suggests COVID-19 officers be redirected as labour inspectors

The Congress of Trade Unions and Staff Associations of Barbados (CTUSAB) has recommended that some of the workers from the COVID-19 Monitoring Unit be redeployed as labour and health inspectors.

Though stressing the need to ensure continued compliance with COVID-19 protocols even as measures are reduced, the umbrella body for the island’s trade unions said in a statement on Thursday that those workers could assist in filling shortfalls in other areas.

“CTUSAB is expectant that instead of any diminishing in the numbers of employees of the COVID-19 Unit that these workers will continue to be engaged, so that they can police and ensure compliance with the COVID-19 protocols.

“Going forward, CTUSAB is proposing that with the longstanding shortages in the labour inspectorate within the Labour Department, that some of these COVID-19 compliance officers are transferred and trained to work as labour inspectors,” CTUSAB general secretary Dennis De Peiza said.

“In addition, it is proposed that some are also transferred to work in the public health system as health inspectors. CTUSAB believes that an uptake in these numbers in the labour inspectorate and as health inspectors would go a long way to ensure the policing of workplaces and the enforcement of provisions of the Safety and Health at Work Act.”

CTUSAB, meantime, also called on the public not to become complacent because of relaxed COVID-19 protocols.

Urging them to continue to observe practices of hand sanitising and mask wearing, De Peiza said: “It is important that the people of the nation recognise that this is a vital step in the process towards ensuring that the rate of COVID-19 infections diminishes, to the point where mask wearing becomes optional, rather than mandatory in public spaces.”

“CTUSAB urges that every effort is made to guard against complacency, and appeals to members of the workforce to understand that as part of their workplace safety and health practices that they engage in responsible behaviour, and to do so by observing those COVID-19 protocols which remain in place at this time,” he added.

The CTUSAB general secretary stressed that as the country moves to restore productivity, workers must continue to “enjoy a good state of health”.

“There ought to be a consciousness of the impact of which absence from work due to illness can have on the nation’s economic recovery efforts,” he added. (DP/PR)