DESPITE having to face Christmas without a job, some banana workers in St Mary who were laid off Thursday by the Jamaica Producers Group have welcomed the redundancy because of the payouts that came with the exercise.

The workers had been without regular wages since the hurricane in September which devastated the banana sector.

Eighty workers employed to St Mary Estate and 360 from Eastern Estate in St Thomas, were made redundant in an exercise that cost $40 million, a fraction of the $1.42 billion that Jamaica Producers said the hurricane has cost the company.

The staff cut affected mostly field workers.

When the Observer visited the St Mary Estate on Thursday, access was first granted by the administrative staff, but later rescinded by senior management. Most of the workers were reluctant to speak and those who did, did so only on condition of anonymity.

But the common thread among those who voiced their concerns was the issue of salary. Veronica Smith, chief union delegate for the Bustamante Industrial Trade Union, which represents the workers, said working conditions, especially after Hurricane Ivan, had deteriorated. Smith was among those made redundant.

“Salary is the major part of it. It’s not good enough,” said the union delegate, who has worked at the banana farm for the past 15 years, having survived management changes, including the last one in 1998.

According to figures provided by the workers, the average salary for a female worker on the property is somewhere between two and three thousand dollars per fortnight.

“If you get $4,000 as a woman you get nuff,” said one worker, who was not on the redundancy list.

Women are employed mostly for picking and packing the bananas for export. A tractor driver may earn five or six thousand dollars per fortnight, one man said, but only because his salary is supplemented by payment for tasks that are carried out in addition to driving duties.

The workers also alleged that the company pays only $2,300 to be split among four persons, for each acre of banana planted.

A former tractor driver, who was made redundant, says workers find it very difficult to survive on the meagre salaries they earn.

“It rough man; me glad me lef,” he said. “A no di work rough, is the money, because you done know no work not easy.”

For his six years employment the worker said he received $65,000 in redundancy settlement.

Another grouse the workers had was the lack of communication between management and themselves.

According to Smith, no meeting was held in September to address the laying off of the workers and none was held to discuss the redundancy exercise.

“They just say redundant. They didn’t have a meeting with us; they didn’t update us on anything, so we have to just go by what they say,” Smith said. She explained that she was laid off after Hurricane Ivan and was only called back to pick up her redundancy cheque on Thursday.

Efforts to get a comment from management only resulted in security personnel being called to escort the Observer news team off the property.

gilchristc@jamaicaobserver.com

Don’t link teachers’ pay to student performance- Gabbidon

BY MARK CUMMINGS

Observer staff reporter

WESTERN BUREAU – Outgoing president of the Jamaica Teachers’ Association (JTA) Wentworth Gabbidon says while the association supports the performance evaluation of teachers it remains opposed to members’ pay being based on student achievement.

“We will not support the payment of teachers’ salaries based on students’ performance because it will take us back in the 19th century,” Gabbidon declared.

He argued that the association could not support the move because the good teachers in the education system are not in the profession because of the money.

“The good teachers are in the system because they love children and because they are dedicated. They are there because they are committed to a task, and so I would not want us to reach the stage where the motivation to do well becomes money,” the outgoing president said.

He suggested that the government should instead pay the teachers a realistic wage and provide the necessary resources to get a better job done. Gabbidon was speaking at the Starfish Resort in Trelawny Friday night, at the installation ceremony for incoming president Michael Clarke.

He later told the Observer that there were suggestions, in some quarters, that government pay teachers based on the performance of students. Gabbidon earlier told function participants that teachers were not afraid of being evaluated, pointing out that it was through the JTA that the Teacher Performance Evaluation Programme was set up.

“The JTA advocated, insisted, co-operated and assisted in developing the instrument so we are not afraid of appraisals,” Gabbidon stressed. The programme was instituted by government at the start of the school year in a bid to improve the generally low performance in public schools.

Meanwhile, Gabbidon said that the JTA supports a number of the recommendations that were unveiled last week arising out of the task force on education set up by Prime Minister PJ Patterson, among them the need to:

. improve the physical conditions of school plants;

. provide more financial resources to the institutions; and

. provide support and specialist staff for the institutions.

However Clarke, the newly installed president, said the association was still studying the report and would make an announcement early next year.

cummingsm@jamaicaobserver.com