Businessman says unscrupulous construction firms with bad practices undermine legitimate businesses

By Emmanuel Joseph

One of the key players in the local construction industry says Government must share the blame for enabling some of the same unscrupulous labour practices in the sector that it’s now complaining about.

The Most Honourable Ralph Bizzy Williams, a director of C.O. Williams Construction Company Limited and retired executive chairman of Williams Industries said on Monday that the Mia Mottley-led administration was “encouraging” such practices because it has been awarding contracts to companies that “are not well managed.”

“The Government is awarding contracts to fly-by-night contractors who only hire subcontractors and they don’t check to make sure that the subcontractors are paying their workers correctly,” the outspoken businessman said.

“When people are not doing what they are supposed to do, they can undermine the legitimate contractors who are treating their employees fairly. I think it is a bad practice, it should not be allowed.”

Williams was weighing in on Minister of Labour and Social Relations Colin Jordan’s announcement last Friday that the Government was cracking down on construction firms executing public contracts and paying workers less than a fair wage, not paying in the National Insurance Scheme (NIS) payments they deducted from workers’ wages, forcing employees to procure and pay for their own uniforms, and engaging in other unscrupulous practices. 

He outlined a rate schedule for payment to eight categories of construction company employees working on government projects, ranging from $8.50 per hour to $30 per hour.

“We really should not have to legislate good behaviour but the practices of some necessitate that Government acts to protect workers from unscrupulous employers who, in order to satiate their greed, would wish to deprive their workers of reasonable conditions of work,” Jordan had said as he delivered a ministerial statement in the Lower Chamber of Parliament.

Williams agreed that these were “bad practices”.

“But this is being encouraged in Barbados recently where companies like C.O. Williams Construction and other well-run construction companies…are paying people the correct wages, paying their National Insurance and ensuring they get holiday with pay and that sort of thing,” Williams told Barbados TODAY.

“There should be penalties for contractors who do not pay the National Insurance and give the people the holidays with pay and all the rest of it.”

He also criticised those companies that fail to provide security of tenure for their employees.

“I will always say that there is no security on earth, only opportunity, but opportunity to unfair people is not great at all. I totally disagree with it,” the  prominent businessman stated.

In explaining the Government’s concern about some companies that are engaging in unfair labour practices, Jordan said: “Some of these entities and contractors, we are informed, practise a business model where workers are employed to transport material across the island, paid a rate which is below the national minimum, and are then told to complete a certain number of trips per day or per week in order to earn a reasonable wage that would enable them to meet or exceed the minimum wage.”

He called these practices “unacceptable” and said officials from the Labour Department and the NIS have been instructed to increase their investigations of these matters. 

emmanueljoseph@barbadostoday.bb