Frank McDonald (with hands raised), senior negotiator at the Bustamante Industrial Trade Union, tries to calm workers at Maxfield Park Children's Home in St. Andrew during a demonstration yesterday. - Ian Allen/Staff Photographer WORKERS AT the Maxfield Park Children's Home in St. Andrew should get the $4.2 million in outstanding retroactive and reclassification money owed to them by the Ministry of Health by April 25.
This was promised to them yesterday by Ministry's Children's Services director, Winston Bowen, after more than 40 workers demonstrated outside the gates of the facility.
They claimed that the $4.2 million, a half of over $8 million originally owed, was late as they had been promised the funds since March 28. They had already been paid a half after salaries and benefits were negotiated between 1999-2001.
Grouses, according to the placards, included the fact that after a reclassification last year, their balances still had not been paid over; there had been no salary increase in January as promised by the Government; no allowances for uniforms and other miscellaneous items, and workers had to take money from their own pockets to buy necessities for the children.
In a meeting with members of the press, police officers who were called to the demonstration and the union delegates, chairman of the board of the Home, Ruby Martin, sought to explain the situation. According to Mrs. Martin, at the monthly board meeting on Wednesday, where the BITU was represented, and at a subsequent meeting with delegates yesterday morning, she had explained that there could be no money until after the Government's budget presentation. The budget presentation will be made on April 18.
The Home, which is the largest in Jamaica, serves as a place of safety and permanent dwelling for almost 200 children who have been abandoned or made homeless. There are 92 persons on three shifts on staff. Maxfield Park is partly funded by the Government, with the rest of the capital coming from donations sought by the board of volunteers to which the home was divested in 1995.
