Samuda: No renegade action

Labour Minister Karl Samuda is urging disgruntled security guards to lodge formal complaints with his ministry or to pursue court action as they cry foul over the terms of new contracts being put to them by the firms in a reclassification exercise.

Several placard-bearing guards took their grievances to the downtown Kingston offices of the Ministry of Labour and Social Security on Thursday, claiming that the new contracts, which would see them now being recognised as employees, would erode some of their rights.

They criticised Samuda for his failure to intervene on their behalf.

The restructuring comes on the heels of a landmark ruling last September that the guards are employees and not independent contractors as they were being classified by Marksman after the National Housing Trust took the firm to court over unpaid employer's contributions on behalf of the guards.

The ruling sent ripples throughout the private security industry with the Government – from which the companies get the bulk of their business – indicating that as of April 1, 2023, it would not be contracting firms which have not reclassified the guards in compliance with the ruling.

At least one company has asked the guards to confirm that they have no “pending claims, proceedings, or disputes” of any nature with the company and to “waive any claims or disputes” that they could have.

It also asked that the guards “unconditionally release and discharge” the company from all past liability “to the fullest extent possible under the law”.

Others have been offering guards one-year contracts with three months probation despite their years of service.

Some guards, who already have active contracts in place with the companies and have refused to agree to the new terms, said they were turned away when they showed up for work on Thursday.

“I want Mr Karl Samuda to wake up. I know seh he’s sleeping. He needs to come out and talk for us,” said David*, a security guard of 28 years.

“From this thing coming out – the contract – he’s silent. You nuh hear nothing … . Him need fi come and defend us. Him [too] silent ... . The security company have wi like some likkle stupid idiot,” he added.

Samuel*, who said he has been working with Guardsman for 25 years, wants problematic clauses removed from the contracts.

“We need some justice. We need to get what we deserve. They need to rewrite the contract and take out all the foolishness that they have in it, and then we will sign,” he told The Gleaner.

“You cannot be working with a company for 30-odd years and still they want to put you on three months probation, and during that three months, they can let you go at any time, and when they let you go, you're not going to get anything at all," he added.

In an interview with The Gleaner, Samuda encouraged the guards to follow the correct course of action laid out for them by either going to the courts or lodging formal complaints with the ministry.

“But you don’t lodge a dispute with me by coming to my office,” the labour minister added. “You go through the normal and established routes or you will not engage me. It’s as simple as that … . I don’t react easily. I do not take kindly to renegade actions. I don't. Period.”

Samuda said that he has a "well known" history of sympathising with workers who have “legitimate grievances”, but noted that the contractual matters are between the security guards and the companies.

“I have nothing to say on the contracts. We don’t get involved in contracts,” the minister told The Gleaner.

“I can’t prevent them from demonstrating. I can’t prevent them. That’s between them and the company. That’s not between them and the Ministry of Labour. The Ministry of Labour cannot intervene,” he said.

Meanwhile, Vincent Morrison, president of the Union of Clerical, Administrative and Supervisory Employees, while emphasising the rights of guards to voice their discontent, also lamented the short time they were given to peruse the new contracts.

“It should never have reached where it reached. My position is ... the Ministry of Labour should have intervened in a more meaningful, direct, and, I would say, fairer way,” he said.

“What is happening here shouldn’t be happening because those workers, who correctly failed to sign, the guards are saying if they sign this, their years of service, their vacation leave, those who get injured on the job and have pending claims – all of that gone," the trade unionist said.

The guards attached to Guardsman Group said they were being asked to sign one-year agreements to begin working with Guardsman Metaverse with a three-month probationary period.

But pointing to the merger between Dual Security and Marksman Limited in 2001, Morrison noted that the security guards employed with Dual Security continued with unbroken years of service at Marksman.

He said a similar approach should be taken by Guardsman in this instance.

The company, Morrison said, should have transferred the guards' service to the new entity or give them redundancy payments for their years of service.

“The Ministry of Labour knows fully well, in my view, that that is the law. Why is it that they don't step forward and say to the companies that is how the matter is supposed to be sorted out?” Morrison said.

He added that he is of the belief that there are “contending opinions” in the labour ministry on the matter, with the “correct opinion” being “watered down in favour of the companies”.

Morrison urged the security guards not to forgo their benefits under the new contracts, adding that he has formed a security task force and will be taking the matter to the courts.

Several calls by The Gleaner to Guardsman Director of Operations Lt Comm George Overton, who also heads the Jamaica Society for Industrial Security, went unanswered on Thursday.

*Names changed to protect guards' identities.

sashana.small@gleaner.com