It’s dehumanizing to line up at roadside for wages – Eustace

It is dehumanizing for Vincentians to have to line up in public to receive their wages.{{more}}

Leader of the Opposition Arnhim Eustace expressed this opinion during the New Times programme on Nice Radio yesterday, in reference to persons who were seen last week, waiting at the side of the road for payments for jobs they had done.

“Last Friday morning, I was going to Kingstown and I saw this crowd at Calliaqua and I suspected they were waiting for some sort of payment,” Eustace said. “Similar scenes were repeated in Biabou, similar scenes in Georgetown, I understand…many people there waiting for payment”.

The Opposition Leader declared that these occurences should not happen.

“I agree that poverty will always be with us; we will never get rid of it completely; but surely, the dignity of our human beings is very important. I hate to see people standing up by the side of the road to get pay,” he said. “I find it dehumanizing to have people just line up and everybody know what they line up for…I don’t like it and I think better ways must be found to deal with these matters”.

Eustace also expressed his aversion to seeing persons standing at the fence of the E.T. Joshua airport to bid their loved ones farewell as they board an aircraft.

“It’s a sign of a lack of care, a lack of concern for the feelings of many of our people. In most cases now, these are poor people and every time I pass that fence at the airport, I don’t like it at all,” the parliamentary representative for East Kingstown said. “We should have had something on top of the building, if we have security problems, it should be glassed around, bullet proof glass, whatever it is, so that people could stay with some dignity and some comfort and look at their relatives leave or have their relatives wave to them”.

Furthermore, Eustace stated that everyone is entitled to a certain level of dignity and pride and that these occurrences should not be happening in the 21st century.

“These things really bother me. I think about them all the time…We must get back to systems which allow people to collect their salaries in some privacy. People allow these things to slip and slide, become more and more inefficient and it’s more and more costly. Not only in the terms of money, but in the cost in human dignity which has no price,” he said.(BK)