Click to view full size

Ten­sions be­tween dai­ly-paid work­ers and the San Fer­nan­do City Cor­po­ra­tion (SFCC) eased yes­ter­day, af­ter over­due salaries reached their bank ac­counts. But Con­trac­tors and Gen­er­al Work­ers Union (CG­WU) pres­i­dent Er­mine De Bique-Meade says the union is close­ly mon­i­tor­ing how pay­ments are han­dled in the fu­ture.

On Tues­day, dozens of work­ers, led by De Bique-Meade, stormed City Hall ahead of the month­ly statu­to­ry meet­ing, de­mand­ing their salaries. It was the third con­sec­u­tive fort­night of late pay­ments. As the work­ers crowd­ed the lob­by, Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress al­der­man Vil­ian­na Ra­moutars­ingh hand­ed her phone to De Bique-Meade, who spoke di­rect­ly with Min­is­ter of Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Khadi­jah Ameen.

Dur­ing the call, Ameen said she had not been in­formed of the out­stand­ing salaries and crit­i­cised May­or Robert Par­ris for fail­ing to raise the is­sue with her. She added that it was on­ly through Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Pub­lic Util­i­ties Clyde El­der, who spoke with af­fect­ed work­ers, that she be­came aware of the mat­ter.