San Fer­nan­do May­or Kaz­im Ho­sein has giv­en a com­mit­ment to re­lo­cate city work­ers from the con­demned build­ing at Carib Street and clean up the area.Ho­sein said the re­lo­ca­tion to the ground floor of the new build­ing, which is still un­der con­struc­tion and the clean-up ex­er­cise should take place with­in two weeks.This un­der­tak­ing comes one day af­ter dai­ly-paid work­ers downed tools to protest the poor work­ing con­di­tions and de­lays in the con­struc­tion of a new build­ing, which they say was start­ed 20 years ago but is far from com­ple­tion.

Ho­sein, along with deputy may­or Ju­nia Re­grel­lo, who were on their way to an­oth­er meet­ing stopped to talk to the demon­stra­tors.

He heard from gen­er­al sec­re­tary of the rep­re­sent­ing the Con­trac­tors and Gen­er­al Work­ers Trade Union Er­mine De­Bique-Meade, who led the protest, that the work­ers were fed up with the con­di­tions un­der which they were forced to op­er­ate. She re­mind­ed Ho­sein, a for­mer City Cor­po­ra­tion work­er, that the build­ing they were cur­rent­ly housed in was con­demned by the Oc­cu­pa­tion­al Health and Safe­ty Au­thor­i­ty two years ago, when he was work­ing there.

"The yard of the build­ing is home to derelict ve­hi­cles and used tyres," she added.De­Bique-Meade said when­ev­er it rained, the work­ers got wet. She said on a dai­ly ba­sis work­ers were un­able to per­form a full day's work as "wa­ter cuts off at 9 am and work­ers are left with no wa­ter to drink or ser­vice the toi­lets."She said em­ploy­ees in sev­er­al de­part­ments, in­clud­ing trans­port, me­chan­i­cal, stores, weld­ing, elec­tri­cal, vec­tor con­trol, san­i­ta­tion work­ers, car­pen­ters, watch­men and the tyre shop, were af­fect­ed.

"The struc­ture of the build­ing keeps chang­ing. I don't know if they even have a build­ing plan for it," said De­Bique-Meade. "Not one part of it has ever been com­plet­ed," she said.Ho­sein agreed with them that the Carib Street build­ing was a dis­as­ter.He lat­er told the me­dia: "This is the most amount of derelict ve­hi­cles I have ever seen in one place. The tyres are a breed­ing ground for mos­qui­toes."Look at the state of the build­ings. The con­di­tions these work­ers have to op­er­ate un­der are ter­ri­ble.

"We ask the pub­lic to keep their homes clean but what is hap­pen­ing in ours? We have to clean up our home first."Ho­sein told the staff he would do all in his pow­er to al­le­vi­ate the sit­u­a­tion as they were the ones who were on the front­line of op­er­a­tions to keep the city run­ning smooth­ly.He promised to call an emer­gency coun­cil meet­ing to dis­cuss the mat­ter with the CEO In­dar­jit Singh, which he did.Yes­ter­day morn­ing, Ho­sein and Singh re­turned to the site and gave work­ers the good news.