Oranjestad, St. Eustatius- Once again there is unhappiness among employees of an international company operating in St. Eustatius; this time at Intertek Caleb Brett.

According to All for 1 (AF1) Union Leader Charles Woodley, who met with disgruntled workers this afternoon, there are various things amiss at the Statia branch of the company.

“The employees work very long shifts and overtime is not paid how it should. Apart from that, there is a lack of tools and a lack of sufficient employees”, said Woodley. According to the AF1-leader the employees and the Union have been trying some time now to get attention of Management about the issues at the company, but complaints were so far not taken very serious.

“We are in general patient and we prefer to have a sound dialogue, but it takes two to tango”, said Woodley this afternoon about the situation at Intertek. Woodley also said that if by Tuesday next week there were no serious efforts from the side of the employer, the union would have no choice but to escalate the matter.

Letter

“We are sending out a letter this evening to Raymond Dahl to request his attention for the issues and we hope that he will respond in a correct way and start addressing the issues which have now been neglected for too long”. Woodley said his union had a big issue with international companies not respecting the laws of the country. “We often see that companies feel that how things work in the US or abroad is the same as how it works in St. Eustatius. This however is not true. There are local labor laws and regulations and they have to be observed, not only when it comes to working hours, but when it comes to compensation for overtime or work on official Holidays”.