Led by pres­i­dent of the Pub­lic Ser­vice As­so­ci­a­tion, Wat­son Duke, more than 100 staff at the Pub­lic Ser­vice Trans­port Cor­po­ra­tion (PTSC) and Min­istry of Food Pro­duc­tion, San Fer­nan­do, walked off the job yes­ter­day, cit­ing ma­jor health and safe­ty vi­o­la­tions.Duke met with the work­ers at the 103-year-old PTSC hub, which was a rail­way sta­tion dur­ing colo­nial times. Say­ing it was "sa­tan­ic" that gov­ern­ment was forc­ing work­ers to "op­er­ate like dogs," Duke called on the OSH Au­thor­i­ty to pro­vide a cer­tifi­cate of com­pli­ance for the his­toric build­ing.

OS­HA, he de­clared, was "be­ing con­trolled like a pup­pet on a string by the Labour Min­is­ter."He de­mand­ed oth­er proof that the build­ing was safe for use."We must al­so have a fire cer­tifi­cate. In­door air qual­i­ty tests must be done. We want a struc­tur­al en­gi­neer's re­port as well as a Town and Coun­try re­port on this build­ing," he added.Duke said a health sur­veil­lance book was al­so need­ed in which all ac­ci­dents and in­juries must be doc­u­ment­ed.

Dur­ing the tour, mice were seen scur­ry­ing around in the stock­room while the stench of urine and fae­ces per­vad­ed the stair­case un­der which home­less peo­ple slept.The se­cu­ri­ty guards in the foy­er had an un­cased flu­o­res­cent light dan­gling over their heads, while sep­tic wa­ter seeped through a crack on the floor of the In­for­ma­tion de­part­ment of PTSC. The walls were swollen with mois­ture and bins were be­ing used to catch wa­ter from the leak­ing roof.

He al­so showed ex­posed elec­tri­cal cir­cuit boards and poor light­ing in var­i­ous de­part­ments. One staff mem­ber, who spoke on the con­di­tion of anonymi­ty, said they had to bring drapes from home to keep out the glare be­cause the bro­ken blinds were nev­er re­placed.Sev­er­al mem­bers of staff said they had breath­ing prob­lems be­cause of the poor air qual­i­ty.

"The vents have not been cleaned and you can see how black it is," an­oth­er point­ed out. A se­nior of­fi­cial said with­in the past few years, four em­ploy­ees had died of can­cer dur­ing their tenure.

Duke told the staff it was their right to refuse to do work if the con­di­tions were haz­ardous to their health.

"Paint, car­pet and big tiles can­not fool us. They can­not ren­o­vate with you in the same build­ing. They have to re­lo­cate you. Do not let them treat you like dogs. Even an­i­mals have rights," Duke told the work­ers.

Say­ing the Gov­ern­ment will nev­er be able to con­trol "the Duke of Aber­crom­by," the trade union leader said he planned to vis­it 460 pub­lic build­ings to en­force the OSH Act."I will be here next Tues­day to meet with you. If you choose to stay and work in these con­di­tions, then don't ex­pect me to come back. Don't call me when you get can­cer," Duke said. He then asked the staff whether they were pre­pared to sign and leave.

He al­so said the work­ers of the OSH Au­thor­i­ty were on con­tract so it was easy for them to be con­trolled by McLeod and called on Gov­ern­ment to give OS­HA re­al in­de­pen­dence by pro­vid­ing prop­er salaries and per­ma­nent po­si­tions for OS­HA staff.

The walk­out af­fect­ed the bus ser­vice as well as re­newals of fish­ing per­mits and pro­cess­ing of salaries.

Of­fi­cial Re­spons­es

Con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, Min­is­ter of Labour Er­rol McLeod de­clined to com­ment on the ac­cu­sa­tions over OSH, ex­cept to say: "I dis­miss most things that Duke says with the ut­most con­tempt." He re­fused fur­ther com­ment.

Late yes­ter­day, PTSC of­fi­cials is­sued a pub­lic ad­vi­so­ry that there would be de­lays in the bus ser­vice in both cities be­cause of the walk­out. The PTSC said "it will work ex­pe­di­tious­ly in the next few hours to nor­malise ser­vice."