Three Port employees in Antigua and Barbuda are the first dock workers in the region to complete an Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) Certificate Course delivered through an online portal and app developed by the ITF Seafarers’ Trust, with support from the International Training Centre of the International Labour Organisation (ILO).
The OSH Ports Level 1 Online Learning Program was delivered over three days, in April, to employees of the Antigua and Barbuda Port Authority and the Antigua and Barbuda Workers’ Union. ABWU Training Officer, Hazel Luke, coordinated the sessions. She said the training was essential and highlighted areas that needed to be improved on at the local Port.
“One of the interesting things about this program is that it uses a very pragmatic approach. Participants are trained through real, everyday scenarios that they may encounter in their work environment,” Luke explained. “I found throughout the training that participants were fully engaged and could relate to the information being shared,” she added.
Luke was first introduced to the OSH Ports training in January 2024 at a Seminar in Barbados hosted by the International Transport Workers’ Federation Seafarers Trust. After completing the course there, the ABWU accelerated efforts to bring the training to local port workers.
The OSH Ports Learning Program consists of five modules which cover several topics including: the Role of Management in Preventing Accidents, Risk Management, Risk Controls and Incident Reporting, and a final assessment to complete the training.
One participant, Kambui Samuel, described the training as extremely valuable. “This has been very informative…it is easy to follow; it gives a lot of insight into things that you should know,” Samuel shared. The other participants were Amis Pennyfeather, Barry Hodge, Amali Mills and Anderson Edghill.
In 2022, it was reported that more than half of global maritime incidents occurred in ports or terminals.
The OSH Ports Course aims to decrease the number of accidents and incidents in ports by supporting workers to increase their knowledge and play an active role in improving occupational safety and health in their workplace.
The Antigua and Barbuda Workers’ Union will continue to facilitate additional OSH training within various sectors.
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Good luck to you guy’s, you going have friction with the bosses and supervisor because in Antigua they don’t want no change, there antiquated ways must be the superior logics, in my feel of work in the power line industry, I resigned from APUA in the 80’s and went to the virgin islands to work with the power company there, having gain certain skill I returned home to offer my expertise, I shook up the place, augmented the skill of the workers there and most importantly the construction standards in line building saving APUA millions of dollars and counting presently, but the supervisor was intimidated and wanted himself to be viewed as the superior logics instead of being progressive in the development of that old institution we inherited from the British, where there is no standards but photographic work repetition, APUA don’t have a measurement standards as in staking sheet data, things are done by gut feelings, so you install a line and in the future you have to put a transformer it have to be taken down to get that transformer to fit, so the man hours of work is duplicitous, costing overtime, so when I came back from working the BVIEC I would make measurements on the pole, I was hated by my superiors especially their neophyte who they jockeyed into key position saying I will not get any where over their dead body, I leave the company after lots of break down of communication and an accident, my subordinates were in courage to disobey my teachings and not to listen to me so I gain grounds to become a higher rank, I could remember one particular young man who was incourage after been trained by me to leave to a next crew, he merely peeped into the supervisor office and say me nar work with that man they, and the supervisor was elated and and laughed and told him to go work with his favored neophyte, in which become detrimental to his favorite neophyte future endeavors, because trained so good by me, he ended up sitting in the supervisor chair beside that supervisor, and all along I myself was prevented from moving forward because they would be uncomfortable with me coming into any senior position that would impact the decisions on doing things differently, Antiguans are band minded they don’t want no change, they are the king crab in this hole, sometimes I am so embarrass that some white technician have to infantillised our engineers and supervisor who just enjoy sitting in the seat of power intimidating their subordinates, the present electricity manager Matthias comes to mind, all APUA assets are decimated under his watch and remain as electricity manager, only wires he is managing because he destroy all Apua generators ostensibly for a benifit personally, so you guys having done your training will know woes and tribulation, but fight on you will impact the port for future workers to come, do your best as I did.
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