VI News Staff 3 years ago
VINStaff Verified #visource

Long-Awaited Justice for Territory’s Elders and Ailing Closer, but Problems Remain

From Montserrat, where he was born in 1943, Alfred Greenaway came to St. Croix, as so many have, hoping for work and a better life, and to some extent found it. Bonded to his employer, young Greenaway first worked as a deckhand dredging the shipping lanes for Hess Oil; then as a mason, a landscaper, or “Whatever job I could find,” he would later say. An opportunity arose to get vocational training as an electrician and Greenaway, with a seventh-grade education, jumped at the chance. While other students dropped out, he attended night school for two years until his program was cut off due to student attrition. Even so, he rose on his skills to a class A electrician, and his salary rose, too: roughly from $8 to $15 an hour according to income tax records. This was only 20 percent shy of St. Croix’s median household income, although still at the federal poverty level for his family of five children.

No health insurance, no work, no hearing

All of this was told in a recorded deposition Greenaway gave after losing his left index finger on a job indirectly contracted by the Virgin Islands Water and Power Authority in 2001. Unable to practice his trade further, he subsisted on odd jobs, family support and about $13,000 a year in disability.

Many Crucian workers share Greenaway’s story in more ways than one. Their services to the island’s major industries are often performed through subcontractors, on jobs lasting a few months, often without health insurance. And if they are hurt, it can take five, 10, 20 years or longer for their cases to be heard.

Now in his upper 70s, Greenaway’s case was recently scheduled for trial after a 20-year wait.

Another Crucian who began his career as a bonded laborer, Arnold Anthony, died before his claim of exposure to asbestos dust could get a trial date, according to a court document. Anthony’s repeated requests for a scheduling order were dismissed, even as the court acknowledged the case was “stuck in interminable limbo.” He waited 17 years before his heart finally was no longer able to compensate for his failing lungs.

More than 2,000 other Crucians are still waiting 25 years after their case, claiming damages from exposure to industrial silicon dust, was first filed.

What can be done?

A bill recently signed into law by Gov. Albert Bryan Jr. could help older people access the territory’s backlogged court system more quickly by filing a motion for preference.

The bill recommends preference be given to those over 70; or over 65 with an illness such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease likely to shorten their lives; or diagnosed with a terminal illness at any age.

READ MORE: ST. JOHN SOURCE

U.S. VIRGIN ISLANDS WEATHER

Guyana introduce new variety of rice

VI News Staff
3 months ago

San Juan receives 42 new police officers

VI News Staff
1 month ago

‘Fish storm’ expected to pass north of the USVI as a strong tropical c...

VI News Staff
5 months ago

USAID staffers told to stay out of Washington headquarters after Musk...

VI News Staff
6 days ago

La Vaughn Belle Transforms St. Croix’s Architectural Story into Art Wi...

VI News Staff
2 months ago