THANKFULLY, THE employees of the National Water Commission (NWC) and the trade unions which represent them, have come to their senses and are back at their jobs. So, for the present, we are not faced with the prospect of communicable diseases associated with the unavailability of clean water.
But, it is entirely possible that these workers, and their trade unions, can be at it again, if ever they are dissatisfied with wage negotiations. For it will happen again, if we continue to allow them to behave with impunity.
The provision of water is an essential service - by fact and by law. Which is to say that employees of the NWC as those in other essential services, are legally prohibited from striking.
But, on Wednesday, hundreds of NWC employees walked away from their jobs, supposedly in furtherance of a pay dispute. They claim that the NWC's management had been too slow in settling a new wage contract.
In other words, they broke the law. First count! But, if this breach of the Labour Relations and Industrial Disputes Act were not bad enough, there was worse to come. On Wednesday evening, bands of people went around the capital and elsewhere trespassing on NWC installations, closing down water systems. To put it bluntly, these were acts of sabotage.
We can only assume that the persons who did these things were knowledgeable if the whereabouts of water mains and other NWC facilities and knew how to manipulate them. It is not unreasonable to assume that such persons were either NWC employees or are in some way connected to the commission.
The strike and sabotage disrupted service to over 450,000 NWC customers and perhaps two million consumers. It would have been nightmarish if the outrage had gone on for longer.
We make three points about this sorry episode.
Firstly, we condemn the employees and their trade unions for this brazen and outrageous disrespect for the law. Hopefully, there will be no repeat.
Secondly, it is beyond our contemplation that the security forces did not anticipate the behaviour of those who trespassed on NWC installations and sabotaged its service. That is a failure that should not be repeated. If the security forces were better prepared, these installations would have been better protected and more would have been manned by, say, the engineering corps of the Jamaica Defence Force. Indeed, the interlopers might have been arrested and charged for their acts of sabotage.
Our final observation is about what should happen now. The law is the law and should be respected.
In that regard, we insist that all those who participated in the illegal strike should be identified, charged and brought before the courts.
It is time too, we believe, for a review of the legislation to institute a mandatory 'cooling off' period before a strike can be called and for a clear majority vote, by secret ballot before it can take effect, assuming, of course, that such strikes do not take place in essential services.
THE OPINIONS ON THIS PAGE, EXCEPT FOR THE ABOVE, DO NOT NECESSARILY REFLECT THE VIEWS OF THE GLEANER.
