Valdeen Shears-Nep­tune

At least three wives of re­trenched work­ers of Arcelor­Mit­tal Steel Com­pa­ny, Point Lisas, have been treat­ed by doc­tors for men­tal de­pres­sion and stress with­in the past week.

This, from a source, yes­ter­day, even as the me­dia queried ru­mours of an at­tempt­ed sui­cide, which vice-pres­i­dent of the Steel Work­ers Union (SWUTT) Ramku­mar Nar­i­nesingh de­nied. He did say, how­ev­er, that emo­tion­al melt­downs were an­tic­i­pat­ed.

The com­pa­ny, on Thurs­day, lost a judge­ment in the In­dus­tri­al Court and was or­dered to pay work­ers they had laid off be­tween De­cem­ber 2015 and Feb­ru­ary this year.

How­ev­er, the fol­low­ing day, work­ers were sud­den­ly in­formed of the com­pa­ny's de­ci­sion to close the Point Lisas plant, as it claimed it was fac­ing $1.3 bil­lion in debt and could no longer con­tin­ue op­er­a­tions here.

Sun­day Guardian spoke with some of the af­fect­ed work­ers on the im­pact of Arcelor­Mit­tal's move on their lives.

Glen­da Vi­dalis, 45, is a sin­gle moth­er of two.

"I didn't see my­self here (un­em­ployed) at this stage in my life. I re­al­ly didn't," she stat­ed dur­ing a tele­phone in­ter­view yes­ter­day.

Vi­dalis, whose chil­dren are both pur­su­ing ter­tiary lev­el ed­u­ca­tion, said she has no clue what her im­me­di­ate fu­ture holds.

She was an em­ploy­ee with Arcelor­Mit­tal for the last 25 years and had be­gun "right out of school" as a tele­phone op­er­a­tor, work­ing her way up to pay­roll su­per­vi­sor.

Vi­dalis said she con­sid­ered her­self on the path to fi­nan­cial se­cu­ri­ty and with the means to leave a lega­cy for her two chil­dren, ages 18 and 20, be­cause of her years in­vest­ed in the com­pa­ny. Now, all she has are payslips, re­flect­ing pen­sion pay­ments of six per cent of her salary, de­duc­tions for a sav­ings plan and med­ical in­sur­ance.

None of which she is sure to re­cov­er. Re­spons­es by the com­pa­ny to queries on those pay­ments were vague, she said.

In fact, the Cou­va res­i­dent said, the com­pa­ny has wast­ed no time in de­ac­ti­vat­ing its med­ical card, as em­ploy­ees who at­tempt­ed to use it yes­ter­day were turned away by med­ical in­sti­tu­tions.

"This was well-or­ches­trat­ed, it seems. I am pray­ing that they do the right thing and at least give us a re­trench­ment pack­age with which we can try to start over. We would have been able to pick up the pieces and move on. One month's salary is sim­ply a slap in the face. I don't have a clue as to what is my next step. Now I have to find an­oth­er job and find it fast," she said.

Vi­dalis, who rents, has been await­ing ap­proval for a home from the Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion for the past 17 years.

She is plead­ing with Gov­ern­ment to in­ter­vene on the work­ers' be­half and seek to get the com­pa­ny to make their wel­fare, pri­or­i­ty over the com­pa­ny's cred­i­tors.

Mean­while, an­oth­er work­er, 51-year-old Al­fred Williams, said, "Right now every­thing is down, down. Is loans, bills, cred­it card. I don't know where my life stands in this thing."

With a ten-year-old daugh­ter and a 70-year-old moth­er to care for, Williams said he was look­ing for­ward to ben­e­fit­ing from an ear­ly, re­duced pen­sion, which he would have qual­i­fied for in the next three years. The com­pa­ny's re­tire­ment age is 60 and em­ploy­ees are en­ti­tled to (re­duced) pen­sion from age 55.

Williams has over 24 years ser­vice with Arcelor­Mit­tal and worked as a se­nior work­er in its re­frac­to­ries de­part­ment.

He too is call­ing for gov­ern­ment's in­ter­ven­tion.

Jo­lene Hend­ley, 30, is a moth­er of a five-year-old girl and is thank­ful that she has the sup­port of her hus­band.

How­ev­er, Hend­ley said, things are dif­fi­cult as they now have to meet all the fam­i­ly's com­mit­ments with one salary. She said she sym­pa­thizes with fel­low work­ers who had 20 years-plus ser­vice and no hope of a sev­er­ance pay­ment com­ing. Hend­ley worked with the com­pa­ny for the last eight years and said she had been look­ing for­ward to achiev­ing fi­nan­cial se­cu­ri­ty and build­ing her life with her fam­i­ly.

"Gov­ern­ment needs to do some­thing right now," she said.

For Roger Charles, Arcelor­Mit­tal's de­ci­sion is a dou­ble blow.

Charles, a fa­ther of six chil­dren rang­ing in ages from 17 to ten, was on in­jury leave when the news came that he no longer had a job.

A res­i­dent of Di­a­mond Vil­lage, Clax­ton Bay, 39-year-old Charles said he has gone from frus­trat­ed to an­gry. Charles had been the com­pa­ny's sole tow­er crane op­er­a­tor for the past 11 years.

With a mat­ter pend­ing be­fore the courts, Charles said the com­pa­ny has been dis­re­spect­ful to him and its en­tire staff in treat­ing them the way it did.

Charles has had three surg­eries since be­ing in­jured in 2010.

His mat­ter was ad­journed to March 23.

"Who is go­ing to com­pen­sate me now. So not on­ly am I un­em­ployed, I am un­em­ployed with ma­jor in­juries and no one to see to my med­ical wel­fare? How do I take care of my chil­dren now. I was al­ready fac­ing is­sues in the court for be­ing un­able to pay main­te­nance, now what?" he asked.

Ac­cord­ing to Charles, there are over 25 work­ers sim­i­lar­ly af­fect­ed, all of whom had record­ed ma­jor in­juries, the claims for which were still un­set­tled. He claims many of those in­ci­dents were list­ed as "in-house."

"They (Arcelor­Mit­tal) just don't care, this was their in­stant way of show­ing this. What are we, the work­ers, to do now, how do we take care of our fam­i­lies?" he lament­ed.