Sascha Wil­son

The Pub­lic Trans­port Ser­vice Cor­po­ra­tion (PTSC) has ad­vised the pub­lic to seek al­ter­na­tive trans­port as work­ers have en­gaged in sick­out ac­tion. Sev­er­al bus dri­vers re­port­ed ill yes­ter­day, so the PTSC had to find sub­sti­tute dri­vers to trans­port com­muters. Trans­port and In­dus­tri­al Work­ers Union rep­re­sen­ta­tive (South) Wen­dell Subi­ah con­firmed that sev­er­al bus dri­vers had failed to re­port for du­ty. He said the work­ers were up­set over poor work­ing con­di­tions and stalled wage ne­go­ti­a­tions.

Two weeks ago, work­ers at the PTSC garage in San Fer­nan­do and bus dri­vers al­so downed tools over the same is­sues. Con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, PTSC's com­mu­ni­ca­tions spe­cial­ist Carl Ramdeo said sev­er­al dri­vers, par­tic­u­lar­ly those from south Trinidad, had called in sick. "There are on­go­ing in­dus­tri­al re­la­tions (is­sues)?be­tween PTSC?and TI­WU...We are close to the end of the ne­go­ti­a­tions and are very op­ti­mistic that it will be set­tled soon," he said.

"We ex­pect the ac­tion to con­tin­ue to­day and in­to to­mor­row so we sent out a news re­lease let­ting the pub­lic know what is hap­pen­ing and ad­vis­ing them to find al­ter­na­tive means of trans­port." How­ev­er, he said, the PTSC was able to meet the chal­lenge yes­ter­day and still pro­vide a ser­vice to the pub­lic. Union pres­i­dent Roland Suther­land could not be reached for com­ment.