December 2004
Delta Security Has a Record of Charges in the Secretary of Labour
The security company, Delta Security, is one of the companies most cited for labour rights violations, said Carlos Ayala, one of the of the lawyers of the Secretary of Labour.
This company offers security services primarily in state-run institutions at a national level. The company has more than two thousand employees nationwide whom they hire without paying them worker's compensation, according to the testimonials of the employees.
When asked if there is a running count of the companies that are most cited, Ayala, with a dissatisfied expression, said, "umm, the companies most cited here are security, and cleaning ones, that's terrible, and one security company specifically, Delta Security."
Ayala
is one of the lawyers that take on cases dealing with labour rights violations
of men and women who have no money to pay for private legal representation,
but whose labour rights have been violated by companies.
Revisto.com inspected the Attorney General of Labour´s books, and
found that between 2003 and 2004 alone, more than a dozen people began
making charges against Delta Security in the labour courts. All have the
one common factor; none have been successful.
The labour courts in the capital, however, are not the only place where evidence of labour rights violations, that Delta has been carrying out for some time, can be found.
The Revistazo team, during one of the visits to the regional Ministry of Labour office in La Ceiba, inspected six books filled with charges made by the labour inspectors. In them appears verification of the fact that in 2002, 23 citations were made against Richard Swasey, 40 in 2003 and 36 in 2004 as of September. All charges are made by security employees who demand their accumulated benefits and worker's compensation. Similarly, the book in the Attorney General of Labour's office counts twelve such charges.
Ayala added that as the labour legal appointee, he has struggled through the chore of trying to summon the owner of the company, whose name, Richard Swasey, has been the only revealed fact in the case.
"It has been physically impossible to cite him, because he hides from justice; the solution is to show his face and not hide. I have traveled to La Ceiba to cite him and he changes addresses every time and changes names just to avoid responsibility", said Ayala.
He added that the state must think about the way in which they fulfill the law. This can inlude suspending the operations of the company and going as far as canceling the operations license pending their fulfillment of the labour compensation demands by a determined date.
He
said, "It makes us angry that they don't pay people who have unbelievable
work days and work for miserable salaries, but at the same time, the law
is also responsible:"
Articles:
Interviews:
Selvin
Martinez
-Labor Inspector
Carlos
Ayala
-Lawyer for the
Secretary of Labor