{"id":3409,"date":"2020-03-04T19:37:41","date_gmt":"2020-03-04T19:37:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/westernmirror.com\/?p=3409"},"modified":"2020-03-04T19:37:43","modified_gmt":"2020-03-04T19:37:43","slug":"tax-office-workers-strike","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/westernmirror.com\/?p=3409","title":{"rendered":"Tax Office workers strike"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Barrington Flemming <\/strong><em>&#8211; Staff Reporter<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Operations at the\nWestern Regional Office of Tax Administration Jamaica, TAJ, Howard Cooke\nBoulevard, Montego Bay, grounded to a halt on Tuesday as workers took\nindustrial action to press home their demands for the management to immediately\ntake steps to deal with long standing air quality issues, sparked by mold\ninfestation of the building.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The workers withdrew their service on Tuesday, citing that\ndespite their protestations to management, nothing has been done to correct\nwhat is a worsening situation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It left many taxpayers stranded in long queues waiting to be\nserved, but no one to assist them. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">One medical practitioner, speaking on condition of anonymity,\nindicated that he has had to treat several workers from the TAJ presenting with\nrespiratory issues in recent months and based on the frequency and severity of\nthe cases, had written to the TAJ administration urging that the matter be\naddressed urgently. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A taxpayer who went to the office on Tuesday to pay property\ntaxes said while she had to curtail the transaction because the workers were\nnot available based on what she was hearing, she sided with the workers and is\nalso calling on the management to remedy the issue. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cI came to pay taxes for my property and saw workers on the\noutside and went in and saw that the line was not moving. I subsequently heard\nthat there are air quality issues in the building. This is serious matter; why\nare they allowed to work in such conditions with so many diseases around,\nespecially corona now? They should address the matter now, put up signs at all\nentry points to warn the public,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Another potential client who came to renew his driver\u2019s\nlicense said he was disgruntled because some notice should have been given.\nHowever, he was critical of the administration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cThis place is making millions of dollars a day and the\nmanagement should do much better. They should ensure that the workers are\nproperly taken care of. Whatever the issue is, they need to address it so the\nworkers can be comfortable to serve the public.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Up to press time, the TAJ management and workers were locked\nin a meeting seeking to hammer out an agreement as to whether the workers would\nresume duties today, pending investigation and remedial action to address the\nvexed issue. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The workers have vowed not to return to the building until\nthe issues have been addressed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Barrington Flemming &#8211; Staff Reporter Operations at the Western Regional Office of Tax Administration Jamaica, TAJ, Howard Cooke Boulevard, Montego Bay, grounded to a halt on Tuesday as workers took industrial action to press home their demands for the management to immediately take steps to deal with long standing air quality issues, sparked by mold [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3410,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[675,182,824,1783,1785,1784],"class_list":["post-3409","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","tag-howard-cooke-boulevard","tag-protests","tag-strike","tag-tax-administration-jamaica","tag-tax-office","tag-western-regional-tax-office"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/westernmirror.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3409","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/westernmirror.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/westernmirror.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/westernmirror.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/westernmirror.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3409"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/westernmirror.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3409\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3411,"href":"https:\/\/westernmirror.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3409\/revisions\/3411"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/westernmirror.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3410"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/westernmirror.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3409"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/westernmirror.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3409"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/westernmirror.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3409"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}