The Tribune

By TANYA SMITH-CARTWRIGHT

tcartwright@tribunemedia.net

“Temporary” social workers at the Ministry of Social Services and Urban Development are upset and accusing the authorities there of treating them “like garbage” while they remain uncertain as to the longevity of their employment.

Speaking with The Tribune, a number of employees who fall in the categories of contractual workers and casual workers, said they have had enough of what they believe is unfair treatment and their complaints being ignored.

Their main complaint is despite diligently doing their work they receive very little acknowledgement and are given no assistance in propelling them forward to become permanent employees.

“We find it strange that all the other Ministries have publicly pledged to assist their workers with the transition to permanent and pensionable status, but Social Services remains silent on the matter,” the spokesperson for the workers said. “This is a bunch of garbage and they are treating us like garbage.

“There are 300 staff employed here on the ‘work programme’. Only Social Services seems to still have a ‘work programme’. They are like temporary workers who do permanent workers jobs. They are paying us chicken feed. We are paid as little as $1,100.00 a month and we cannot pay rent or mortgage and other necessities and survive off of that.

“Furthermore we cannot get any of these things as we cannot even get a job letter because we are not permanent. Most of us have college degrees in social work and are not being paid for it, however, they are milking us like cows. We use our own cars to do our work and we are given nothing in return. I saw a co-worker counting coins the other day to put gas in her car to do the government’s job. That’s not right!”

The spokesperson went on to further explain the terms of employment for the group and measures taken to highlight their plight.

“As I said before there are 300 people on the work programme and then 100 people are on contract,” she said. “We are social workers and we were only supposed to be temporary and on contract for a while. We were supposed to be on contract for the term of the contract and then evaluated and then made permanent if we cut the mustard. We work very hard and are always called upon to go the extra mile.

“Had it not been for the goodness in our hearts and for the calling upon us to do what we do, many of us would walk away and go and find work in another field. When our contracts run out, then we are home for long periods …. months sometimes before they are renewed and we are brought back to work with no talks of being made permanent.

“They just continue to renew the contracts not thinking how much this is setting us back in terms of credit and not to speak of the small salaries and what is expected of us. We are in a really bad state, but who is hearing us?”

Asked who has taken up the mantle to assist them and if Frankie Campbell, the Minister responsible for Social Services has viewed their plight as priority, the response from the spokesperson was grim.

“The only people trying to push for us is the union,” the spokesperson said. “No one else is trying to help us. Besides the union, we have written letters to the authorities and no one has answered them. You mentioned the Minister, well that’s a joke. Maybe if he agrees to see us then we might get a conversation going with him to help us. He doesn’t want to see us at all.

“Every Minister has pushed for their contract workers to be made permanent. It is all over the news. Every Minister beside ours. Do you know how we get our contracts renewed when they expire? We have to involve our MPs. We have to make them call him and other places to push the issue.

“Our Minister has the gift of gab and that’s about it where he is concerned. He has the talk and that’s it. So when our MPs call him for assistance with making us permanent, he runs on with fluff and then blows them off by telling them he will call them back and he never does. We get no satisfaction from him. He doesn’t care!”

The Tribune made every effort to contact Minister Campbell to learn his take on the story of the non-permanent social workers, but he didn’t answer the calls to his phone and ignored messages sent to him.

The practice of not communicating with those who seek answers is now common place with this current administration and journalists are constantly complaining about the frustration it brings when they are doing their work and need input from the authorities.

Not being permanent on the job for years is not the only problem these social workers claim to have. The spokesperson said they are at risk daily, due to the type of work they do, but the risk is all theirs as they have no form of insurance coverage nor do they have risk allowances.

“We are out there facing all sort of people every day. We have no insurance. No risk allowance either. Some of our workers have contracted tuberculosis before because of this job. They were on their own. We are screaming for someone to hear our voice. Our vehicles are being taxed doing the government’s work and we are not being compensated.

“There was also an instance where a client of social service felt they were not being serviced quickly enough and threatened to return to shoot up the place. There is nothing in place to protect us if something goes wrong with us physically. This is our calling. This is what we do for a living. Why are they treating us like this?

“Every other Ministry is taking care of their employees in regards to COVID besides are Ministry. The hand sanitizer stations are our buildings do not work. No one sorting that out. We have had numerous outbreaks of COVID and nothing is being done about it. There were instances where clients who admitted to having COVID were allowed to come into the buildings. We need help.”

The spokesperson for the disgruntled social workers said the irony of it all is that Social Services is the entity that fights against social injustices and assists people in staying above the poverty line, however that entity has now, “turned against its frontline workers and is determined to keep us in poverty.”