#BTEditorial – Fix the issues facing SSA workers

It is sad to have so many of our “essential workers” complaining about their treatment as employees and the allegations of disrespect.

The two years of disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic should have taught us an important lesson. We learned that workers who are often taken for granted because their roles were viewed as not so important and that they could be easily replaced, are in fact, critical to the functioning of our society.

The gas station attendants, the supermarket and mini-mart cashiers and merchandisers, our nurses, teachers and ambulance attendants, the custodians required to maintain schools and offices, police officers and other first responders, all work to ensure our society functions properly.

Also high on that list are garbage collectors. When many of our citizens enjoyed the luxury of working from home or a hybrid work arrangement, and still enjoyed the security of full pay, our garbage men and women, as well as other essential workers, turned up for work and performed their duties as usual.

The men and women who are employed by the Sanitation Service Authority (SSA) to keep our streets clean will not tell you they are living their best lives in the job that they always dreamed of doing. They are doing dirty work with the accompanying hazards to their own health.

Their work is greatly appreciated by most of us, and so, it is not a comforting feeling to hear that they are unhappy with their working conditions, or that they feel disrespected and dishonoured by their employer.

“I think there is a stigma against us; they treat us like the garbage we pick up. We don’t even get safety training, but this job is a dangerous one. Just the other day a man get he hand squeeze in the loader and he ain’t get a cent,” one garbage collector remarked to the media.

“Government spending all sorts of money on new trucks, lifts and even this recreation hall, but [there is] none for us. We worked through the ash fall, through COVID but still no raise of pay, small hazard pay and no grant for front-line workers.”

This is an indictment on the SSA, and the statutory entity needs to decisively address the industrial relations situation with haste.

We will not promote a situation in which workers are being unproductive or tardy. However, any citizen who traverses parts of Bridgetown where mounds of garbage are not properly disposed, or in some housing districts where householders dispose of bulk items such as refrigerators, televisions, stoves, and beds indiscriminately, appreciate the task with which SSA workers are confronted.

How many times have we heard these workers complain about being punctured by waste such as glass and metal that were improperly disposed? How about instances over the years were medical waste such as needles and syringes, some with blood, were discarded with household waste.

We have even had instances where workers discovered faecal matter from humans and pets thrown into garbage cans, along with dead animals.

To be confronted by these kinds of hazards on the job and then to feel disrespected by your employer or management, is akin to pouring salt in their wounds.

These are occupations that very few people will readily apply for when on a hunt for employment. We are not suggesting that SSA workers are more important than other front line employees, but their jobs are sure much dirtier. 

There are already enough stressors facing workers today in Barbados, and as a country we are in a position to do better by our garbage collectors.

The authorities have suggested that at the heart of the discomfort is miscommunication. If that is the case, then SSA management must move swiftly to address a deliverable that has very little monetary cost, if any, attached to it.

Let us not forget how proud we were of these employees and other essential workers, when we were clapping and banging pots, in celebration of their diligence and contribution to keeping us all safe during the pandemic.

We know what a state this island would become if SSA workers withdrew their services for any significant period of time, particularly now that we are seeking to have the economy firing on all cylinders to reach the growth targets that have been predicted this year.