Treating the Covid at its source!
While the government has come up with a series of restrictive measures, public transport workers do not understand how they have not been included among those key sectors where the risk of mass transmission is the highest. A multitude of cases of infection and deaths among the public transport workers has been recorded by the Union of Bus Industry Workers (UBIW). A detailed list per company has been made public shortly. The Union has sent a letter to Minister Alan Ganoo this Monday 15 November.
Start at the beginning!
“We commend the government for putting restrictive measures on beaches, gatherings, weddings and funerals and restaurants. However, we would have seen it as more reasonable if they had started with the sector of public transportation at the beginning, which is literally, a vector of mass contamination. We are very concerned about the plight of the employees but especially, the public and the working middle class“, says Alain Kistnen, Secretary of the UBIW. In a letter to the Minister of Transport, Alan Ganoo, the Union will put forward a series of grievances but above all, a series of measures that the Government is slow to adopt.
79 infected and 20 dead in a major company
To date, there are many who do not discredit the government in its measures and decisions, but reproach it for doing things the wrong way round! “I do not consider that the Minister or the ministry concerned as unaware of the reality in transport and the risk of massive contamination that can be caused by this current happening in buses or in the metro. At the last count, in only one of the largest transport companies, 79 people were found to have been contaminated with Covid 19 and 20 deaths! And these are not the latest figures but they will be used as a reminder. The situation is quite alarming, according to our Union, we consider that mass transmission is inevitable in public transport“, says Alain Kistnen.
Reorganise the whole Transport Planning
“The health instructions must be reviewed for all modes of public transport. But to break the chain of mass transmission, the Ministry of Transport must reorganise the whole Transport Planning in order to reduce the circulation of the working class. If we are, in a time of crisis, the country can afford to change the working hours but also impose Work From Home in both private and public sectors. This will require a study of peak hours, an understanding of companies in all sectors and above all, an understanding of those who make up the working class,” says Alain Kistnen.
The UBIW will hold a press conference this Tuesday 16 November. They will detail the number of cases of contamination and deaths by transport company and propose the best solutions to the government. Amongst others, the distancing between passengers, the imposition and respect of barrier gestures in the bus, an adapted solution for ventilation, the proposal of more controls by inspectors in public transport, the imposition of vaccination for the eligible traveller and the health pass, the repartition of the fleets on the island…amongst others. “I believe that a test of one month will reveal the coherence and the effectiveness of all this program that we are going to present” concludes the Secretary of the UBIW.
