The right to vote in Jamaica, like so many other rights, was fiercely fought for and very hard won. That battle should have ended in 1944, when all adults in the society, regardless of gender, class, creed, propertied, or not, were officially accorded that right under Universal Adult Suffrage.
That fight was a series of raging civil unrests that gave birth to the trade union movement and militarised the nation’s workforce. Both the voting rights and the trade unions were birthed through the labour pains of sugar workers who were terribly disadvantaged, abused, and grossly underpaid for decades.
Trade unions emerged when lumpen workers—men and women, the direct descendants of enslaved people—stood together and fought against unconscionable employers, in government and the private sector.
The workers war might have changed the old trajectory of abusing the under-class in work places, but it hardly changed the minds and attitudes of the pompous abusers who occupied corner offices and boardrooms.
Worker abusers do not understand that God places a high value on work. He strategically established rules over work in His written Word more than 2000 years ago, and these rules were in full effect in the 1940s and remain applicable and enforced today – Do not take advantage of hired workers. Pay them their wages each day before sunset, because they are poor and are counting on it. Otherwise, they may cry to the LORD against you, and you will be guilty of sin.
Only recently, Minister of Justice Delroy Chuck lamented the fact that employers in the hotel sector continue to pay low wages to the thousands of local employees engaged a
t various levels across the prestigious tourism belt.
Wages, especially for the lower classes, have remained a serious point of real contention. They are unlivable to the point that many workers cannot recover the transport costs they incur daily to even get to their place of employment. Outside of transport costs, the next big bill is food, and even the affordability of the basic food basket has slipped from the grasp of many.
Somewhere between the 1940s and 2023, the nation took some giant steps backwards in the area of worker rights and compensation. It seems the fight for workers rights will have to be fought again.
In Trelawny last week, Justice Minister Chuck sounded the alarm to hoteliers that the salaries being paid are too low and will not attract the best in skills or qualifications.
While there is a call by some in the private sector for foreign workers to be brought in to fill existing vacancies, Minister Chuck made it clear that there are thousands of young people sitting down playing lotto, rubbing their hand middle, while the country has jobs available. He cautioned that Jamaica should look at the close to 300,000 or more persons (who) are available to join the workforce, before looking overseas.
It would appear that there are businesses that are willing to pay higher wages, even in foreign currency, to overseas workers to perform duties that local employees, if offered decent wages, are available to perform.
For years, the cry of workers in Chinese-operated wholesale establishments across the island has fallen on deaf ears. These workers function under the most inhumane circumstances in many instances and live on the mere crumbs of the sector.
The trend of keeping wages low has not only impacted manual workers; the middle class has also taken a major hit, shrinking in size and stature, as many in the professional class, including nurses, teachers, and security personnel, have gradually slid among the fast growing cohort loosely labelled – the working poor.
The working poor accounts for a huge chunk of those employed and are the centrepiece of the government’s boast about low employment numbers.
Politicians, including Justice Minister Chuck, however, escaped this cruel working poor dragnet as they recently awarded themselves hefty salary increases while offering crumbs to teachers and other public sector workers.
Teacher migration, worker instability, and despondency were the results of this egregious wrong.
Too low wages have been the cry of too many Jamaican workers in nearly every sector for way too long. Not even the recent 30 percent minimum wage increase could provide any reasonable relief for these menial and manual workers, who were way too far beneath the poverty line for that to matter.
Too many organisations deduct taxes and other charges from the meagre earnings of these workers and fail to remit them to the various agencies. This is the heights of wickedness.
Too many workers have sought housing benefits only to discover on application to the National Housing Trust (NHT) that their deductions were never delivered to or received by the housing agency.
Too many workers have looked on in horror as their cars, furniture, and homes are repossessed for outstanding arrears that reflect as deductions on their paychecks.
Too many times, companies report losses while hiding massive profits in order to avoid requests for due and earned salary increases.
Too often, companies boast about billion-dollar profits while ignoring the plight of the poorest, who mop their floors and serve their coffee.
Too many times, owners and managers secretly lavish themselves and their friends with benefits that were intended to be company-wide and ignore the pleas of loyal staff.
Too many employers come up before God as criminals, murderers, and extortioners because of their continued abuse of the poor employed to them.We have accepted a standard of existence that keeps the poor in a place where they are constantly crying out to their God or turning to illegal means for basic survival.
The security forces under a declared State of Public Emergency may be sent in a cluster of board houses to apprehend criminals, but none would ever be sent in the upper-class boardrooms to do the same. But God is not asleep.
When we see the Hand of God bringing down companies that once flourished, know that the tears of the poor and dispossessed have reached the ears of the Sovereign Ruler who sees, hears, and knows all things.
For way too long, the representatives of God in the land have remained silent while the poor are batter-bruised by wicked, selfish and corrupt employers.
Where is the church that faced down colonial injustice in Sam Sharpe Square and stood like David against Goliath when wickedness reared its ugly head in Morant Bay? Where is the church that will stand against unrighteous rulers?
The oncoming holiday season will only intensify the growing inequity and push those who are already on the brink over the edge.
The crush is real, but the sovereign God, He who is Just, is never short or late in addressing the wickedness against the poor, the widowed, or the orphaned. We continue to stand as witnesses watching pot-bellied fat-cats brought low and towering organisations crumble under the weight of the collective tears of disenfranchised workers and their dependents.
Let this be a warning to the unjust. The cry of manual workers in the private sector, waiters, housekeepers and janitors, security guards, wholesale workers, garbage collectors, teachers, health care workers, members of the security forces and other public servants, who are children of the sovereign God have been heard. The day of recompense will come.