Latest update April 24th, 2024 12:59 AM
Apr 05, 2016 Letters
Dear Editor,
I am the owner of Homesafe Security and Domestic Services, referred to a letter published in your newspaper News on 4th April 2016.
Homesafe provides a quality service to our customers and provide our guards with a fair wage and excellent working conditions. We employ hundreds of Security Guards and I enjoy a close personal relationship with many of them. Those who have worked for as long as the author of the letter purports, refer to me, as many of my friends do, by my middle name only. They are the most important asset in the organization and we have a firm policy that they must be treated with utmost respect almost to the point of deference by their supervisors.
There is a chain of command for grievances to be reported. Nevertheless, senior managers have an open door policy for reports to me made directly to us. They are systems for anonymous reporting of problems and no one is punished for doing so.
The specific complaints in the letter are without merit. No guard works for 20 hours. We always have redundancies to cater for unexpected absenteeism and where some shifts are extended, guards are free to decline overtime work. If they accept an extended shift, they are paid time and a half. In the context of the size of our workforce and the range of locations we believe this is exceptional.
We provide frequent training from a myriad of internal and external specialists, including the Guyana Police Force. The equipment supplied to each location is based on our client’s requirements.
Homesafe provides bonuses and cash awards at Christmas but these are merit based. This is not a legal requirement but it is good for employee-employer relations. Insofar as statutory requirements are concerned we work closely with the Ministry of Labour and the National Insurance Scheme to ensure that all obligations are faithfully discharged and any difficulties are resolved speedily.
The event where a guard was asked to move from one location to another during a shift is quite true. It is unclear why this third party finds it worthy of comment. An emergency arose and the guard was needed at another location. She refused to change her location and walked off the site she was being relocated from. In the course of an internal enquiry she said the Supervisor who was providing transportation drove off and left her. I do not think this could be true. Even if this was so, the logical thing would have been for her to remain at the original location until her shift ended. She could not explain why she did not do so. She asked to be terminated rather than be suspended. Notwithstanding that she could have been terminated for cause, she was paid the statutory benefits.
It is surprising that a reputable media newspaper would publish such scandalous correspondence without first inviting me to respond. I believe it to be an attempt to injure my reputation and that of my business by a former employee who was dismissed for stealing and is now a competitor.
Robert Johnson
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