Rishard Khan

rishard.khan@guardian.co.tt

Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Stu­art Young says busi­ness­es need to act re­spon­si­bly as the coun­try faces off with COVID-19, which has in­fect­ed some 700,000 and killed over 33,000 world­wide.

He made the com­ment yes­ter­day in re­sponse to ques­tions posed by Guardian Me­dia fol­low­ing sev­er­al re­ports that some es­sen­tial busi­ness­es may not be ad­her­ing to the reg­u­la­tions set out in the Pub­lic Health Or­di­nance to gov­ern the “Stay-at-Home” mea­sures for the next two weeks.

Em­ploy­ees from sev­er­al small and large chain busi­ness­es com­plained to Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day that their em­ploy­ers were forc­ing staff mem­bers who aren’t es­sen­tial to op­er­a­tions to turn up for work, con­tra­ven­ing Sec­tion 3 (1) (a) of the Or­di­nance.

“The reg­u­la­tions state that even in es­sen­tial busi­ness­es on­ly es­sen­tial work­ers and those that can­not work from home should be phys­i­cal­ly at work,” Young said in a What­sApp re­sponse yes­ter­day.

“The COVID-19 virus doesn’t re­spect any­thing or any­one and we are fight­ing it be­ing spread. So the own­ers and man­agers of es­sen­tial busi­ness­es must be re­spon­si­ble and re­spect and im­ple­ment the re­quest for stay-at-home mea­sures ... Sure­ly it is not for the state to po­lice each es­sen­tial busi­ness.”

One per­son who spoke to Guardian Me­dia on con­di­tion of anonymi­ty for both them­selves and their em­ploy­er said all em­ploy­ees at a phar­ma­cy’s head of­fice were giv­en let­ters and deemed “es­sen­tial.” How­ev­er, the em­ploy­ee not­ed that many of those present can ad­e­quate­ly per­form their func­tions from home.

“When one em­ploy­ee asked about work from home op­tions ... it was stat­ed that be­cause they were on short-term con­tract em­ploy­ment, that pro­vi­sion would not be pos­si­ble. The em­ploy­ee fills the role of a da­ta en­try clerk. This is clear­ly a non-es­sen­tial func­tion at this time but the chain has man­dat­ed the em­ploy­ee come out five days a week over the course of the time when there are spe­cif­ic in­struc­tions to stay at home,” the em­ploy­ee said.

“(The em­ploy­ee is) now in a po­si­tion where­by they are forced to choose their em­ploy­ment or the health of them­selves or their loved ones.”

An­oth­er em­ploy­ee of a lo­cal food prod­uct man­u­fac­tur­er, who al­so spoke un­der the con­di­tion of anonymi­ty, said they were be­ing re­fused the op­tion of work­ing from home al­though their tasks can be done re­mote­ly.

“Ba­si­cal­ly, all my valid op­tions are; com­ing out to work so I can get paid or stay home with no pay. I’ve com­mu­ni­cat­ed that I’m will­ing to work from home. How­ev­er it seems to not mat­ter,” the per­son said.