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Friday, July 25, 2025

Extended shutdown worries workers

by

Chester Sambrano
1935 days ago
20200406
Andeline Cyrus at her place of work in Montrose, Chaguanas, yesterday.

Andeline Cyrus at her place of work in Montrose, Chaguanas, yesterday.

Chester Sambrano

Shocked, dis­ap­point­ed, con­fused and even an­gry were some of the emo­tions be­ing felt by work­ers at fast-food restau­rants across the coun­try yes­ter­day, af­ter the an­nounce­ment by Gov­ern­ment that their places of work will have to close their doors un­til April 30.

Dur­ing a news con­fer­ence yes­ter­day, Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley in­struct­ed that all fast-food restau­rants, which had been pre­vi­ous­ly al­lowed to op­er­ate as es­sen­tial busi­ness­es to pro­vide food to the coun­try, should shut down op­er­a­tions un­til April 30 in or­der to min­imise the spread of the COVID-19 virus.

For An­de­line Cyrus, she had a mix­ture of all those feel­ings pent up in­side her af­ter hear­ing Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley speak on the clo­sures of all restau­rants un­til month-end.

“The first thing when I hear about it, I start to say what the jail? Hear me nah, hm­mm, how I go­ing to pay my bills? I say how I go­ing and pay my bills, how I go­ing to live, what am I go­ing to do?”

Cyrus has been work­ing at Tri­ni Food Court, a small restau­rant in Ch­agua­nas that serves lo­cal cui­sine for break­fast and lunch, for five years and now man­ages the dai­ly op­er­a­tions. She said if the busi­ness does not open she has no in­come to col­lect.

“When we work one week the next week you get paid for it, so if we close up we have no mon­ey com­ing in.”

There are ten peo­ple em­ployed at the es­tab­lish­ment.

Cyrus said she has a host of month­ly com­mit­ments to meet, in­clud­ing util­i­ties, gro­ceries and car­ing for her young son.

“And now he’s not go­ing to school it cost­ing me more, be­cause when he is in school he has cer­tain times to eat but when he is home every minute he wants some­thing, if I not work­ing, where I get­ting the mon­ey to buy it?”

Al­though at the time Cyrus was speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia she hadn’t spo­ken with her em­ploy­ers, she al­ready had a fair idea on the grim fu­ture that lies ahead.

“I know right now, the way the sales are and how the busi­ness is, is not like they have the mon­ey to help out the work­ers. They re­ly on the dai­ly sales to pay their work­ers and to pay their bills. So is not like they have mon­ey put away.”

Cyrus said she had pre­vi­ous­ly tried ap­ply­ing for grants from the Gov­ern­ment for as­sis­tance when school was closed but was faced with too much red tape and un­cer­tain­ty.

“I don’t know my next move from here.”

In the same Ch­agua­nas area, sev­er­al oth­er sim­i­lar busi­ness­es said they were al­ready feel­ing the pinch, with some al­ready closed for the past few weeks due to slow sales and an abun­dance of cau­tion.

But for big­ger fast-food chains like KFC and Roy­al Cas­tle, em­ploy­ees at the Ch­agua­nas branch­es felt the same emo­tions but were re­luc­tant to speak un­til they heard from their em­ploy­ers. All ex­cept one de­liv­ery dri­ver who agreed to speak on the con­di­tion of anonymi­ty.

He said: “I feel­ing hurt be­cause it is as if they are tak­ing bread out of my mouth. I hope they sup­ply­ing some kind of fi­nance for me and my fam­i­ly.”

The dri­ver de­pends sole­ly on the dai­ly de­liv­er­ies for in­come.

“I wouldn’t have any em­ploy­ment at all,” he said, not­ing he is un­sure of how to move for­ward.


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