THE DEATHS of three Drainage Division workers within a two-year period have led general secretary of the Unity Workers Union (UWU), Caswell Franklyn, to call for an investigation into whether working conditions were a contributing factor.
“We have three people who have died from working in those holes and the Drainage Division does not even want to acknowledge that. And nobody knows what they died from yet,” Franklyn said.
One worker, Stephen Codrington, was in a hole on Bay Street when he complained of feeling unwell and decided to go home, but never made it there: he collapsed on Martindales Road and died shortly afterwards at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, said Franklyn.
He added that the parents of another worker, Marcus Marshall, were still at a loss about the cause of his death as he was a strong, vibrant footballer who suddenly took ill and died.