Staff of the Ministry of Agriculture headquarters at Country Pond are to begin working from home effective today Thursday March 21 following a series of industrial actions to bring attention to their claims of poor working conditions.
Minister of Agriculture, E.P Chet Greene, who was in Guyana attending an FAO meeting, is apologizing to the staff for the new arrangement noting that it will last no longer than two weeks in the first instance.
“The Minister of Agriculture have made a decision to have workers at the ministry’s headquarters, with immediate effect and until further notice, to operate in ‘pandemic mode’ , that is, working from home with assignments given by their superiors and reporting back to their superiors via agreed platforms,” he said in a statement issued overnight.
He offered apologies on behalf of the ministry to the general public and moreso to the affected staff and sectoral stakeholders for interruptions which are scheduled to end within the next two weeks.
According to Minister Greene the episode at the ministry of agriculture is another manifestation of the many challenges the government faces with respect to buildings that house government ministries and departments. “The government is working through a series of challenges to public infrastructure and wishes to assure affected workers and the general public that no effort is being spared to improve the air quality and general conditions of the several workplaces,” he explained.
Both the Antigua and Barbuda Public Service Association and the Antigua Trades and the Labour Union are fully onboard with the move to remote work. The AT and LU also issued a statement overnight indicating that it had reached an agreement with the minister regarding non-established workers which it represents.
