Alescon Readymix Limited is on the verge of a shutdown because of the strike at Trinidad Cement Ltd (TCL), chief executive officer Zahir Hosein said yesterday. Hosein said if the situation was not resolved quickly, he might have to send home more than 160 workers. "We are on the brink of actually shutting down our plant," he said.
"The major component in our business is cement and I guess by the end of tomorrow, our supplies will be finished. "We will have to schedule the employees for no pay leave or vacation." "The only business we are into is ready mix and we have a supply based on the amount of work we have to do. "However, we only have supplies to take us until tomorrow."
Hosein said while the company was seeking alternative sources of supply, including importing cement, that might take two weeks or more to implement. He said the dry season was usually peak time for the construction industry, but because of the amount of rainfall in recent days, there had not been any significant increase in the sales. Alescon is not the only company experiencing significant loss of business because the TCL strike.
Several hardwares, concrete block manufacturers, contractors and home owners have also been affected. "There is no cement to bond the blocks together, so the sale on blocks has been really slow," hardware owner Pamela Seeballack said. She said their cement stocks ran out on Monday and had not been replenished.
TCL's general manager Satnarine Bachew said the company would import cement from its Arawak plant in Barbados and its Caribbean Cement subsidiary in Jamaica. However, the OWTU has written to its trade union counterparts in Jamaica and Barbados, asking them not to allow "one sack of cement" to be sent to Trinidad.