NSWMA boss bats for workers who fail literacy test

WESTERN BUREAU:

Audley Gordon, the executive director of the National Solid Waste Management Authority (NSWMA), is not supportive of a decision to deny potential sanitation workers employment because they lack the basic literacy skills to read at a level equivalent to grade two in the nation’s primary schools.

Mark Jones, the public cleansing manager for the NSWMA’s Western Parks and Markets (WPM), told last Thursday’s monthly meeting of the Westmoreland Municipal Corporation (WMC) that persons from the parish, who were seeking jobs as street sweepers, were not employed because they were not able to read at the grade-two primary school level. However, Gordon yesterday told The Gleaner said that should not be the case.

“I didn’t hear the officer’s statement, but if he said that once you can’t pass it [entry test], you can’t get the employment, then that is not true,” Gordon said while giving a commitment to foster an environment where all individuals can succeed and advance. “We will not stop encouraging our members, but the absolute truth is there is nobody being turned away or there should be nobody being turned away because they can’t pass a grade-two entry test.”

According to Gordon, said he was supportive of an inclusive approach aimed at empowering individuals, promoting personal and professional growth, and ensuring that everyone has a chance to improve their abilities and contribute to the workforce.

“Five years ago, once it became clear to the managers that the basic grade-two entry test is a problem, I intervened and said, ‘We will not deprive anyone of their employment at that level because of that’,” said Gordon, referencing persons seeking employment as sidemen and street sweepers.

ENCOURAGED TO UPSKILL THEMSELVES

Regarding the employees who are facing literacy challenges, Gordon said the state agency continues to encourage employees with reading and writing impediments to upskill themselves and that the agency had previously engaged Lifelong Learning and HEART/NSTA Trust to help these critical workers.

“We have not denied, or we should not, and I hope nobody is doing it; because we should not be denying anyone,” said Gordon.

Last week, during the WMC monthly meeting, Jones revealed that the NSWMA was facing an unexpected hurdle in hiring sanitary workers and street sweepers in Westmoreland as many of the applicants were failing the basic literacy tests.

When Jones was asked by Councillor Warren Lyttleton, the People’s National Party representative for the Grange Hill division, whether leniency could be shown to the applicants struggling with the tests, he said the grade-two literacy level was as low as the requirements could go.

“I can’t go around that,” said Jones, in response to the request for leniency, despite an urgent need for additional street sweepers and sidemen in Westmoreland.

“This is basic reading and math at grade three or four, and persons are being challenged in mastering it.”

Paulette Jackson, a Westmoreland native, who commented on the situation with regard to street cleaners following a recent Gleaner article, said that, based on her knowledge, over the years many persons cleaning the streets in Savanna-la-Mar were not able to read but did their jobs well.

“When I was growing up in Sav, the best street cleaners and garbage personnel weren’t great readers, but they got the work done. But now the young people, as dem start smell dem arm, as mi mother used to say, dem stop go school, and waa drive big car weh dem caa spell de name and tun uneducated scammers, and Boom drinker,” wrote Jackson.

Christina Burke, who also commented on social media, intimated that the qualification should not be too strict as people who can read satisfactorily are not enticed by street cleaner and sideman jobs.

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