Public Works employee on one day suspension
Refused to remove political billboards from vehicle
By Stanford Conway
Editor-in-Chief-SKNVibes.com
BASSETERRE, St. Kitts – AN employee of the Public Works Department (PWD) told SKNVibes that he was this morning suspended for one day after he refused to assist in the removal of billboards from one of the Department’s vehicles.
The employee told this media house that this morning (Sep. 22) while at the PWD, his foreman told him and a number of his fellow workers to unload some billboards off a vehicle that was parked in the Department’s compound and he refused.
He also stated that his refusal prompted the foreman to send him home for the remainder of the working day.
“I was in the yard this morning and the foreman came and told us that we have to take the billboards off the truck, but me and some other guys decided that we are not taking them off.
The foreman again told me to go and take the boards off the truck and I told him that I am not going and take off no board because me ain’t put them on…‘let who put them on take them off!’ He tell me go home and clock out for the day.”
The employee, who has over four years service with the PWD, further stated that he is a carpenter and those who work on the truck are labourers, and “they were in the yard and they are the ones who supposed to take the boards off the truck’. ~~Adz:Right~~
He also said the billboards were previously within a garage but was this morning removed and placed in the truck by the labourers. He further said the billboards were again to be removed from the truck and stockpiled in a section of the compound.
“I am a carpenter and that is a labourer’s job, not a skilled worker’s job; and in addition to that, I refused to move the billboards based on the nature of them,” he added.
When contacted, the foreman admitted to sending the carpenter home for the remainder of the day. He however declared it was not because he refused to remove the billboards from the truck, but “because of the bad words he used when saying he would not remove the billboards”.
The foreman said the employee had used many expletives during the period he was told to remove the billboards, and he [the foreman] decided to send him home and to take the matter up with the Director.
SKNVibes learnt that the billboards are those of the People’s Action Movement, which were last week removed from public properties around the island by employees of the PWD on the instruction of higher authority.
