On a Tuesday morning, scores of employees from a national Ministry of Works launched coordinated protest action to demand resolution of long-standing unpaid overtime and withheld wage claims that have left hundreds of workers in financial distress. The demonstration assembled directly outside the ministry’s St. John’s Street headquarters, where participants gathered to hold an organizing meeting and map out their next collective steps in the campaign for back pay.
In a show of cross-worker solidarity, government-employed truck drivers joined the walkout, parking their heavy vehicles along the main thoroughfare outside the building. The stationary trucks triggered significant traffic gridlock across the surrounding area, captured on video by independent observer George Wehner that has since circulated locally. The protest drew participation from staff across multiple core divisions of the ministry, including the central motor pool, public roads maintenance division, traffic light infrastructure unit, and the ministry-run quarry operation.
Speaking on behalf of the protesting workforce as elected shop steward, Mr. Peters outlined the full scope of the unpaid claims, revealing that some long-tenured ministry employees have been waiting for owed overtime payments as far back as 2014. He added that even newer hires who joined the ministry’s payroll back in April of this year have yet to receive any of their earned wages at all.
“ We want our money — all of our earned money,” Peters stated firmly during the protest. “Until we get every cent that is owed to us, we are not returning to work.” Peters emphasized that employees have grown frustrated with repeated empty commitments from ministry leadership, noting that workers are no longer willing to accept non-binding verbal promises of future payment. The shop steward confirmed the strike is an indefinite work stoppage that will end only when all outstanding funds are disbursed to affected workers. He also recalled that this is not the first protest over the issue: workers staged a similar demonstration previously, and received formal assurances that the back pay problem would be resolved, but no payments have materialized in the months since.
As of Tuesday, senior leadership at the Ministry of Works has not issued any immediate public statement in response to the strike or the workers’ formal claims.