Probe Chinese labour campsBy COREY CONNELLY Sunday, October 18 2009
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Nothing to do: Chinese labourers have little to do at their camp site at Ramsaran Trace, Cunupia where their living conditions have been described as ...
Imagine being employed in another continent, unable to speak the country’s native tongue and overburdened by an inability to access hard-earned wages.
This was the plight of about 70 Chinese labourers last week as they protested the reported failure of the Beijing Liujian Construction Corporation, which had employed them, to settle outstanding payments.
It was the first time that a group of Chinese workers had staged such a mass demonstration against their employers and gained national attention in the process.
As of yesterday, though, the jury was still out on who should be held accountable for the actions of the Chinese labourers.
The workers, during a heated protest on the north-bound lane of the Uriah Butler Highway in Charlieville on Tuesday, claimed they had not been paid wages for the past two months and wanted to return to China.
This claim has been refuted by the Beijing Liujian Construction Corporation.
In a statement on Friday, the company said it had paid all outstanding salaries to the workers and was making arrangements for their trip back to China.
The company said the workers were concerned about the payment of a performance deposit, which it was obligated to pay once the terms of the contract had been fulfilled.
The right to that deposit, the company said, was forfeited when the workers terminated their contracts before completion of the projects.
The Beijing Liujian Construction Corporation said the workers enjoyed wages of TT$24 an hour, which compared favourably with what was being paid in China.
Labour Minister Rennie Dumas, who said that pay records and other documents were being obtained from the company to determine whether there was any truth to claims by the labourers that they were being exploited, met on Friday with executives from the company and the Chinese Embassy in a bid to resolve the issue.
He subsequently appointed two government officials to fast track the investigation into the matter. Officials from the Ministry of Labour’s conciliation department, the factory inspectorate and the Occupational Safety and Health Agency also visited the company’s work sites to evaluate working conditions.
The Chinese Embassy, though, has absolved itself of any responsibility in the matter, saying it could not intervene in the business affairs of the Beijing Liujian.
Although a few of the Chinese workers have since returned to their homeland, with others due to leave on a phased basis over the next few weeks, the incident has thrown light on the deplorable living and working conditions in which many of them are forced to exist in the country.
So horrendous was the situation, former Attorney General and civil rights advocate Ramesh Lawrence Maharaj has filed a motion in the Parliament to urgently debate the living and working conditions of the Chinese labourers.
His Ramjack counterpart, Chaguanas West MP Jack Warner, infuriated by the development, also vowed on Thursday to take up the matter with the Secretariat for the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting, ahead of next month’s historic event.
The trade union movement, though, was adamant that the Government should accept responsibility for the situation.
For the labourers, the majority of whom were intent on making money to send to their impoverished families in China, the scenario was particularly alarming, especially in light of the fact that the workers have for years been employed on several of the Government’s mega projects, including the soon-to-be completed Centre for the Performing Arts, and other infrastructural developments.
Tunapuna/Piarco Regional Corporation (TPRC) councillor Shama Deonarine, in whose electoral district of St Helena/ Warrenville about 100 Chinese labourers had set up camp, on Thursday regarded the workers’ living accomodation at Bejucal Road, Cunupia, as squalid.
She made it clear that the camp needed to be immediately shut down.
At the camp, the workers used what can only be described as concrete latrines, with PVC piping around the rim, to relieve themselves. In addition, kitchen and living quarters were found to be in an unsanitary condition.
Deonarine, who toured the camp with county health officials, also noted the camp was registered with the TPRC by a local company as a site for a warehouse/office and not for accommodation.
A Sunday Newsday investigation further revealed that workers camped at a site near Moses Street, Saddle Road, Santa Cruz also lived in unsanitary conditions.
On Thursday, light blue shirts and jumpers were draped along two brilliantly-coloured pre-fabricated structures while dried foliage dangled like curtains from electrical cables at the main entrance to the facility.
Thick weeds also snaked its way along the back of one of the pre-fabricated structures as two stained plastic tanks sat on a nearby plank. A security guard paced the compound.
Sunday Newsday was unable to catch up with these Chinese workers since many of them were employed at construction sites in Port-of-Spain and left for work early on mornings.
“I find they (Government) should bring more of them to Trinidad,” a taxi driver said.
“They does work real fast and the country would be much more developed.” The taxi driver said the labourers often walked in groups from the Croisee along the Saddle Road and fished regularly at a nearby river.
“A man said the other day that since them Chinese come, it hardly have fish in the river,” he joked, adding the workers seldom interacted with residents.
The Chinese labourers were also no-shows at the Aranjuez North Secondary School and Five Rivers Secondary School in Arouca when Sunday Newsday visited the sites. These are projects of Beijing Liujian, who was awarded the construction contracts by the Education Facilities Company Ltd.
The workers had downed tools in solidarity with the protesting counterparts, it was learnt.
Meanwhile, the Employers’ Consultative Association (ECA) has called on the Ministry of Labour to initiate an urgent investigation to verify if Beijing Liujian had breached the contractual terms of employment of the Chinese labourers “and, if proven, suitable redress ought to be insisted upon.”
Condemning the situation, the ECA’s Linda Besson said in a release that the living conditions of the construction workers appeared to be in direct contravention of the Occupational Safety and Health Act 2004 as well as local health and sanitation laws.
Retired trade unionist George De Pena also lamented the treatment of the Chinese labourers.
He said although he had not been apprised fully of the conditions in which the workers had been operating, it was a “most regrettable state of affairs.”
“There has to be some truth to what they are saying because it is most regrettable that in the world, people are still working with these conditionalities. It is an atrocity, very sad indeed,” he said of the labourers’ living and working conditions.
Speaking in a brief telephone interview from Miami where he was attending a regional meeting hosted by Goodwill International, De Pena insisted, however, the Government should not be held accountable. “The company that contracted them should be responsible,” he said.
De Pena, secretary of the National Centre For Persons With Disabilities, said the trade union movement must continue to raise their voices in condemnation of such acts.
