The Tribune

By TANYA SMITH-CARTWRIGHT

tsmith-cartwright@tribunemedia.net

STAFF of the National Insurance Board, located at the agency’s Blake Road offices, briefly walked off the job yesterday over fears that there was a suspected positive case of COVID-19 in the building.

An NIB staffer working from those officers told The Tribune workers walked out for about an hour when no manager would advise them to leave the premises.

NIB shares “common areas” with the Aviation Authority in that building and the trouble allegedly started when the sick staff member showed up for work, the source claimed.

For the past two months, NIB’s Claims Department, Contributions Department and the Call Centre have worked out of the building on Blake Road.

“We are in the same building as the Department of Aviation. Aviation takes up the first and second floor and NIB takes the last floor,” the NIB insider said.

There are fears a worker in the building had COVID-19.

“The building only has two doors. The sick person came to work today and all of Civil Aviation, the first and second floor were sent home,” the NIB worker said.

“The NIB staff, all of us on the third floor were upset and walked outside. The managers were not saying anything and not sending us home. We share the same building with these people and everyone is using the same bathrooms. We have common areas like the restrooms and the building is air conditioned so everyone is up in arms about that.”

The Tribune contacted Ghion Roach, president of the Public Officers Union that represents line staff at NIB, for his take on what happened with union members at the Blake Road facility, but he said he was gathering information at the time and trying to ascertain the facts.

At 3.58 pm yesterday, an email was sent out to the NIB staff located at Blake Road.

The email read, “Dear (NIB staff), be advised that the LJ Centre general public areas will be sanitised this evening in order to minimise the spread of COVID-19. We encourage all staff to continue to follow the established health protocols, wash hands regularly, wear a face mask, keep the appropriate distance from individuals and sanitise your hands frequently.

“Remember that if you are not feeling well or displaying any type of COVID-19 symptoms please stay at home and seek medical attention if needed. We must continue to work together to fight this deadly virus.”

The email was signed by a supervisor from the Talent Management and Capacity Development Department.

“We were outside for a while,” the staff member continued. “My department knew about this from this morning but everyone else found out between like 1pm and 1.30pm. No manager came to tell us or debrief us to say what is what and what we should do.

“Managers would not make the call or send anyone home. What are they here for but to manage? We went back inside after about an hour waiting to hear from them what to do. Judging by the email you can see we were not advised to stay home.”