The Bank­ing, In­sur­ance and Gen­er­al Work­ers’ Union (BIG­WU) is ac­cus­ing the CEPEP Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed and the Gov­ern­ment of dis­guis­ing an em­ploy­ment re­la­tion­ship to de­ny 11,500 work­ers their law­ful rights.

In a state­ment is­sued yes­ter­day, BIG­WU said the mass dis­missal of work­ers on June 27, fol­low­ing the ter­mi­na­tion of 300 Com­mu­ni­ty-Based En­vi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion and En­hance­ment Pro­gramme con­trac­tors, was not mere­ly an ad­min­is­tra­tive de­ci­sion but a hu­man cri­sis. The union said CEPEP’s po­si­tion that the work­ers were em­ployed by con­trac­tors and not the com­pa­ny it­self was false and amount­ed to dis­guised em­ploy­ment.

BIG­WU ar­gued that CEPEP is the true em­ploy­er of the dis­missed work­ers, cit­ing di­rect su­per­vi­sion, per­for­mance as­sess­ment, work sched­ul­ing, timesheet re­views, and pay­ment au­tho­ri­sa­tion.