All gloves are off : Union boss threatens lawsuit over CAS workers antiguaobserver.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from antiguaobserver.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
ABWU exec calls for laws against worker exploitation
The Deputy General Secretary of the Antigua and Barbuda Workers Union (ABWU), Chester Hughes, who was speaking during the union’s virtual Labour Day ceremony.
Spread the love
The Deputy General Secretary of the Antigua and Barbuda Workers Union (ABWU) has made a strident call for the government to enact legislation to protect workers from exploitation.
“We need legislation; severance legislation, unemployment legislation, to protect us from exploitation,” Chester Hughes said during the union’s Labour Day ceremony on Monday morning.
He said workers are facing challenges that they have never seen or experienced before in the workplace, adding that the advent of the Covid-19 pandemic has been used as an excuse for businesses to mistreat employees.
The government is accelerating arrangements to have the Jolly Beach Resort transitioned into a Covid-19 quarantine facility.
Cabinet spokesman Melford Nicholas said that the facility is likely to be ready for use within two weeks and will accommodate persons placed in government quarantine and isolation.
“Jolly Beach is in a state of flux, it is in receivership and so it’s a question of working with the receivers to ensure that we can put a management team in place to manage the health services that we want to do at that facility,” Nicholas told a press briefing yesterday.
However, in excess of 400 people who were once employed at the resort are still without outstanding wages, benefits and severance. It is now almost a year since the resort closed in March 2020 and the monies cannot come soon enough for these workers who have in some cases managed to secure menial jobs, working only three days a week.