Workers dispute OSHA findings claiming Education Ministry safe for work

The Oc­cu­pa­tion­al Safe­ty and Health Agency (OS­HA) has found that con­di­tions at the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion’s Tow­er A build­ing on Low­er St Vin­cent Street, Port of Spain, did not pose a se­ri­ous health risk to em­ploy­ees, rul­ing that a four-day re­fusal to work by staff was not jus­ti­fied.

The find­ing fol­lows an OS­HA in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to a re­fusal to work which be­gan on Sep­tem­ber 14, af­ter staff raised con­cerns about san­i­ta­tion, re­port­ed rat sight­ings and rat drop­pings at the build­ing.

In a Sep­tem­ber 21 re­port to Per­ma­nent Sec­re­tary Si­mone Williams, OS­HA in­spec­tor Ed­son Jack­son said no live rats, ev­i­dence of ro­dent ac­tiv­i­ty or vis­i­ble rat drop­pings were ob­served dur­ing his Sep­tem­ber 17 in­spec­tion of the af­fect­ed floors.

How­ev­er, a work­er has since pro­vid­ed pho­tographs and videos show­ing what the work­er iden­ti­fied as live and dead rats and rat drop­pings on the com­pound. The ma­te­r­i­al has not been in­de­pen­dent­ly ver­i­fied.

The OS­HA re­port said bait traps had been placed in af­fect­ed of­fice ar­eas by the Pub­lic Health De­part­ment and were be­ing mon­i­tored dai­ly by the Min­istry’s Fa­cil­i­ties Man­age­ment Team.

Man­age­ment al­so com­mit­ted to dai­ly clean­ing and sani­ti­sa­tion of the af­fect­ed floors, while ad­di­tion­al pest-con­trol and pre­ven­tive mea­sures were be­ing im­ple­ment­ed.

How­ev­er, OS­HA ac­knowl­edged that it was un­able to in­de­pen­dent­ly ver­i­fy the ex­tent, ef­fec­tive­ness or out­come of the pest-con­trol in­ter­ven­tion be­cause sup­port­ing doc­u­men­ta­tion or a for­mal pest-con­trol re­port from the Min­istry of Health was not avail­able at the time of the in­spec­tion.

De­spite this, Jack­son con­clud­ed that the con­di­tions did not ex­pose em­ploy­ees to an un­ac­cept­able health risk and that the re­fusal to work from Sep­tem­ber 14 to 17 was not jus­ti­fied.

Work­ers have since ques­tioned the find­ings and said they in­tend to con­test the re­port.

Mes­sages from staff in­di­cate that their con­cerns ex­tend be­yond ro­dents to mould and poor air qual­i­ty. Work­ers said they want the build­ing closed and all floors prop­er­ly sani­tised by a pro­fes­sion­al pest-con­trol com­pa­ny rather than work­ers from The Na­tion­al Main­te­nance Train­ing and Se­cu­ri­ty Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed (MTS).

One work­er al­so ques­tioned the in­spec­tion process, say­ing af­fect­ed staff were not con­sult­ed by the OS­HA in­spec­tor.

The work­er claimed the in­spec­tor in­stead spoke with man­age­ment and some of­fi­cers who were afraid to leave their of­fices be­cause they were on con­tract.

Work­ers al­so said the Joint Con­sul­ta­tion Com­mit­tee had re­quest­ed a copy of an air-qual­i­ty re­port but had not re­ceived it.

Staff are now await­ing di­rec­tion from the Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion. Guardian Me­dia has reached out to the PSA for com­ment.

The OS­HA re­port ad­vis­es that any­one ag­griev­ed by the in­spec­tor’s de­ci­sion can ap­ply to the Chief In­spec­tor for a re­view un­der Sec­tion 18(3) of the Oc­cu­pa­tion­al Safe­ty and Health Act.