Agriculture workers on state-owned farms are overjoyed that they are now able to use mobile lunch rooms and sanitary facilities.
During a media tour of two farms managed by the Barbados Agricultural Management Co. Ltd, today, several of the workers expressed their pleasure that promises to address the harsh and unsanitary conditions they have been subjected to for decades have finally been kept.
Jude Barro, who has been working at Searles Plantation, Christ Church since 1992, said the mobile facility would greatly improve the poor working conditions workers have been forced to endure for many years.
He explained that being exposed to the elements and having to depend on going into the bush whenever nature calls, has been a difficult experience.
“It take so long. I never believe that I would see this improvement at Searles. We needed this for a very long time,” he said.
Charge hand at Mount Pleasant Plantation, St Philip, Cathyann Pinder said she and her colleagues were thankful, grateful and happy that their needs are now being met with the provision of the facility which is equipped with all that they need to remain comfortable and sanitary while in the field. She said the male and female bathrooms bring a significant ease for the workers, many of whom often had to head to the fields to meet their bathroom needs.
“I am grateful and I believe I speak for all the workers out there. We are thankful. The workers did decide among themselves who would keep the buses clean weekly, that has been going on even in the older bus. So, with this one, it is going to be the same and we have the necessary equipment and tools to clean the bus and sanitize it and everything,” she explained.
“We are going to really maintain the bus because if you have something that is of value to you, you are going to take good care of that thing because you want to see it prolonged and last for as long as possible. So, we intend to keep the mobile unit to the best of our ability to make sure that it stays in the correct and proper way that it should be, it is for our own benefit as well”.
The new mobile facilities are outfitted with a lunchroom and bathroom with special provisions for women’s sanitary needs, and are solar-powered and fitted with charging ports for mobile devices.
The BAMC manages eight farms with over 130 workers.
Minister of Agriculture and Food Security Indar Weir, who described the rolling out of the facilities as a historic occasion for the local agriculture sector, noted that the Government has fulfilled its promise to workers to provide them with lunchroom and bathroom facilities.
The minister said: “All of us should recognize that even with very scarce resources, the Government is prepared to do what is right by the people of Barbados. With the limited resources we have and with going through this pandemic, we have still been able to deliver these facilities because this is really fundamental. I am really appalled at how workers were asked to show up on farms every day without having the convenience of a bathroom.”
In fact, Weir noted that the standard for farm workers should be so high that every farm in Barbados should be equipped with the mobile facilities. The minister said Government was prepared to work with private farms however possible to ensure that their workers have access to similar facilities.
Deputy General Secretary of the Barbados Workers’ Union (BWU) Dwaine Paul who said the BWU has for many years, been calling for agriculture workers to be provided with the mobile facilities, said the project is one of the new benchmarks in agriculture.
Paul said: “From here we need to continue to improve and go forward at a much faster pace that we would have achieved this. We should have worked out in terms of planning and understanding the needs of the workers and now should be able to put that information that led to this change into expediting the other stuff that needs to be done to bring agriculture forward, and to really give the workers that have been toiling out here their just deserve.
“There is a commitment to have all of them in place by the end of the year and we would very much like to see that because obviously come January, we will be moving into the height of the crop season and it would be good to have all of the facilities rolled out. The union is pleased today and the workers are happy and that is what we strive for. We believe that we need to do more to signal to people that agriculture is an industry that is respected, that it is an industry we care about and that it is a profession that people can gravitate towards.”
Paul added that the BWU will constantly be checking in with BAMC and workers to make sure that the maintenance schedules are upheld to avoid the units from quickly deteriorating.
BADMC has a contract with a local cleaning company to remove waste from the facilities weekly. (AH)
