Scrap-iron shutdown options

THE BAN on scrap-metal export that came into force on August 12 has triggered a dramatic response from suddenly unemployed workers. They mounted a protest on Thursday, blocking Temple Street in Claxton Bay to signal their anger and desperation.

The Public Services Association (PSA) and Movement for Social Justice (MSJ) have backed the workers and made clear their disapproval of the ban. MSJ political leader David Abdulah described the six-month shutdown as “an economic crime.” PSA president Leroy Baptiste wondered how the displaced workers would meet their commitments.

The months leading up to the ban made it clear that the situation with scrap-metal recovery was out of control. Brand-new metal fittings were being “recovered,” and painted metal joists more than six feet long – which were government property and said to be worth over $1 million – were found in a scrapyard.

It does no good for irritated scrap-iron workers to argue that they are not criminals when the evidence of multiple thefts continuously tainted the business.

The Scrap Iron Dealers Association, which plans a protest on Wednesday, kept promising to take action against them even as the brazen thefts continued.

The Government has now demanded that all the industry’s “Peters” pay for the illegal activities of its few “Pauls.”

The AG is expected to bring legislation to reduce the illegal trade in three months, though it isn’t clear such a lengthy ban is necessary.

At the core of the problem with the scrap-metal industry is how easily a few bad apples have been allowed to ruin the business. The dealers should have instituted robust self-regulatory measures to identify the provenance of materials offered to them for sale.

Anyone accepting welded girders painted in the distinctive blue of government infrastructure, for instance, should have been automatically and definitively censured by the dealers’ association.

The theft of both government and private property was prolonged, bold and clearly out of control, leaving the State with little choice but to maximum braking by halting exports.

But now the Government must acknowledge that the solution to one problem has the potential to create another.

A workforce of more than a hundred who subsisted on a difficult, very physical hustle are now sending angry warnings that they need jobs. There is considerable menace in the threat that, “If we can’t eat, none of all you can eat.”

The tidying and organising of scrap-metal recovery isn’t only a matter for legislation.

All stakeholders should seek ways to improve both policy and procedure, as well as the systems and infrastructure to manage its collection, with the goal of reducing the time needed for the export ban and ensuring the industry operates accountably and legally, and that these rules are enforced.