Roget: Media workers among most vulnerable

He made the observation while responding to the Central Bank’s monetary policy report May 2017 which reported that the latest data from the Central Statistical Office (CSO) revealed that the unemployment rate rose in the third quarter of 2016, to 4.0 per cent from 3.4 per cent in the similar quarter of 2015.

The CSO also reported that during the third quarter of 2016, the number of persons with jobs fell by 6,600 persons (year-on-year).

Roget said the increase in unemployment was “not surprising” but from that time to now a significant number of people had left their jobs because they were retrenched.

He added that the figures do not reflect the “reality we grapple with today.” He said that media workers were among the most vulnerable and cited employees at Guardian Media Limited (GML).

According to a representative from the Banking, Insurance and General Workers Union (Bigwu), GML had offered early-retirement packages to more than a dozen employees and is seeking to cut 73 jobs.

Roget described telecommunications company Flow, which has reportedly offered all employees voluntary separation of employment packages, as the “new kid on the block.” He said that Government had set the tone by sending workers home themselves and rejecting alternatives offered by trade unions.

Roget said employers were only concerned about “the bottom line and how it looks” while the workers, who have amassed a huge amount of profits for employers and businesses, were now paying price as soon as profit margins are threatened.

“It is a serious inequitable sharing of the burden.” Roget pointed out that banks and businesses are still declaring profits while workers being sent home. “We are the sacrificial lamb.

But the labour movement is not prepared to accept that.” He said that the mass street demonstration on August 4, which has been named “labour day II”, is because the country is not being governed properly and because of that the man on the street, the unemployed and all vulnerable groups were “taking a hit.” “We have to come together and in all of our groupings make the point that the man on the street count.

Not just the elite.” He continued: “And we will not rest until we get governance which recognises the contribution ordinary people and workers make.