Commewijne boat owners back on the job

The boat owners of the Commewijne District have decided to get back on the job. They had gone on strike on the 26th. The residents of Commewijne only experienced inconvenience due to the boat strike. Officials of the Association of Boat Owners of the Commewijne District (VBDC) did not support the strike which they deemed irresponsible. Union officials made it clear that “there is in fact no reason to take action, as we are still negotiating a number of issues with the minister,” said Ann Sadie, the chairwoman of the union. Hundreds of people were affected by the strike because they could not go to work or school in the morning. In the afternoon the Heiligenweg was crowded because people had to wait for hours for a bus in order to return to Meerzorg. “My heart bleeds to see this and yet I worked hard to help the people so that they could still go to work or school. For example, the National Transport Company used extra buses to transport people home from the Veerplein in Meerzorg and some busses were also used to transport people to the city so that they could still get to work or school. Because the boats were not sailing, there was more traffic from Commewijne that had to cross the bridge and that caused longer traffic jams on both sides of the bridge The boat owners need to know that their wild strike has caused so much suffering to the people of Commewijne and the people don’t deserve that,” said Sadie. The chairwoman indicated that the union is aware of the fact that the members are struggling, but made it clear that taking irresponsible action is not the solution. “There are consequences to these actions because agreements have been made with the minister and they have not kept their part of the agreement. They could also lose their license and we do not want that either,” said Sadie explains. The union held an urgent general meeting on the evening of the 26th to get the boat owners to change their minds and it was decided that they would ‘set sail’ again on June 27th.

The boat owners took action because they want the government to pay them the rest of last year’s fuel compensation. Union officials recently found out that the previous board had signed a letter of intent with the ministry in 2017 to stop the payment of this compensation but the boat owners claim that they were not aware of this and that they still want their money. Current union officials and the minister have already discussed this with each other, but the boat owners nevertheless decided to go on strike on Wednesday.