Nightmare for BIR, Customs workers

In his impassioned maiden speech, Joefield spelt out to the Senate the job-fears of workers who had opted for a “secure” but modest foundation of a Public Service job, only to now face redundancy.

Joefield painted a touching picture of the prospects facing such a public servant.

“He sacrificed attractive salaries and expensive perks on the altar of job security. He has mortgage payments to make on a humble property – nothing like the property of politicians. He has car payments and school fees to pay...And after 20 years or more, the Government rewards this career public officer with threats of redundancy and retrenchment.”

Joefield said the Government had “set up” the workers.

“Over the years it underpaid them, overworked them, deprived them of training and core resources, imprisoned them in stagnated temporary-or-first-appointment positions, jailed their benefits and opportunities, exiled their negotiated salary increases and now, now it accuses them of corruption, inefficiency and greed, and now it intends to act as judge, jury and executioner at their trial.” He urged the Government to boost efficiency by improving these workers’ pay, training, and equipment. “But no, you use them, abuse them and now with hollow, unfounded arguments no empirical data, no critical analysis you intend to discard them,” said Joefield, the Public Services Association (PSA) second vice president.

He said that while the Government said the TTRA is based on the UK Revenue Authority, they have failed follow the UK to further legislate to protect workers.

“This administration cares noting for workers or even for its own citizens,” he said.

Joelfield again warned of the realities of redundancy.

“Do we really remember or know what it’s like to be unemployed, to be on skid row? Even in our teenage years or as a young adult, we felt the intense stress of being unemployed, of the expectations of what seemed like the entire world upon our shoulders. Can you then imagine the stress and trauma of being unemployed at middle age?”

He asked if a retrenched worker must slowly fade away and live a life of quiet desperation. “Whatever settlement they receive will soon dissipate and disappear. What then will be their position? They have given their entire lives to their jobs. Most do not have any special skills. They were planning their careers ‘to suit’”.

He said the Government was planning to cast out these workers into a society where people quote scripture for their own ungodly ends.

“Unemployment causes suicide and murder, it is that deadly. We have seen these effects in foreign countries...There are literally thousands of cases worldwide where suicide was linked to unemployment.” The Government, he said, does not care. “It does not care who dies, who is killed, who is fired, who is suspended, who migrates, who is victimised, it has clearly demonstrated this for the entire world to see...We plead that you vote to stop this madness now.”

Noting the Government is also eyeing other State bodies such as the Immigration Division, Joefield said the debate was a defining moment for the country.

Lauding the role of the Public Service Commission, he warned against any move to “privatise, brutalise and undermine the institutional framework built into the Constitution which establishes a virtual buffer zone between the politician and the public officer”.