Tau­reef Mo­hammed

No court in­junc­tion can stop im­mi­gra­tion work­ers from stay­ing away from work un­til prop­er con­di­tions are pro­vid­ed, says pres­i­dent of the Pub­lic Ser­vice As­so­ci­a­tion (PSA) Wat­son Duke.Short­ly af­ter 7 am yes­ter­day, staff at the Port-of-Spain pass­port of­fice walked off the job, leav­ing scores of frus­trat­ed peo­ple strand­ed with­out pass­ports.The sit­u­a­tion was more the same in San Fer­nan­do, where over 100 cus­tomers were turned away. On­ly few emer­gency cas­es were dealt with. Cus­tomers were told the of­fice had min­i­mal staff and it was not known when op­er­a­tions would be back to nor­mal.Speak­ing yes­ter­day at a press con­fer­ence at the PSA's head­quar­ters at Aber­crom­by Street, Port-of-Spain, Duke said "in­dus­tri­al ac­tion", which the in­junc­tion sought to stop, did not in­clude re­fus­ing to work un­der poor health and safe­ty con­di­tions.

Duke pro­duced a re­port from the Oc­cu­pa­tion­al Health and Safe­ty Au­thor­i­ty (Os­ha), dat­ed Ju­ly 4, that iden­ti­fied health and safe­ty con­cerns at the im­mi­gra­tion build­ing at 67 Fred­er­ick Street, Port-of-Spain (see side­bar). He al­so cit­ed in­ci­dents–the ex­plo­sion of an elec­tri­cal pan­el in which a T&TEC fore­man was bad­ly burned, the col­lapse of a glass win­dow from the sec­ond floor and health prob­lems among staff–that sug­gest­ed the build­ing was un­fit for work. He said: "We don't re­al­ly want this in­junc­tion to be dis­charged. It could re­main be­cause it does not af­fect us. We have nev­er protest­ed."The in­junc­tion sim­ply re­strains us from tak­ing or con­tin­u­ing to take in­dus­tri­al ac­tion with­in the mean­ing of the said act (In­dus­tri­al Re­la­tions Act)."What does it mean to take in­dus­tri­al ac­tion with­in the act?"It means to take things like strikes, lock­outs, sym­pa­thy strikes, sit-ins, go slow... this is what it means to take in­dus­tri­al ac­tion. We have nev­er done that."

In ex­plain­ing the de­f­i­n­i­tion of "in­dus­tri­al ac­tion" in the IRA, Duke said it did not in­clude "a fail­ure to com­mence work or a re­fusal to con­tin­ue work by rea­son of the fact that un­usu­al cir­cum­stances have arisen which are haz­ardous or in­ju­ri­ous to health or life."We are clear. The work­ers left on their own ac­cord be­cause they are con­scious. We are not afraid of any con­tempt of court," he added.Ac­cord­ing to Sec­tion 15 of the Oc­cu­pa­tion­al Safe­ty and Health Act, Duke added: "An em­ploy­ee may refuse to work or do par­tic­u­lar work where he has rea­son to be­lieve there is se­ri­ous or im­mi­nent dan­ger to him­self or oth­ers, or un­usu­al cir­cum­stances have arisen which are haz­ardous or in­ju­ri­ous to his health or life."There is no court in this land that can take away the right for us to pro­tect our own life."I ask the State to take it easy. The PSA is re­spon­si­ble for 120 es­sen­tial ser­vices and I know they do not want to war with us, es­pe­cial­ly where our rights are con­cerned be­cause we are not giv­ing them any."

Labour Min­is­ter Er­rol Mc Leod could not be reached yes­ter­day as calls to his cell­phone were left unan­swered and mes­sages left were not re­turned.Mem­bers of the pub­lic faced off with PSA pres­i­dent Wat­son Duke yes­ter­day, ac­cus­ing him and the im­mi­gra­tion of­fi­cers of break­ing the law and hold­ing the coun­try to ran­som.From 4 am, peo­ple lined the pave­ments out­side the pass­port of­fice on Fred­er­ick Street, Port-of-Spain, on­ly to be told around 7 am that the of­fice would be closed for the day.Just af­ter 7 am, Duke ar­rived and was greet­ed with loud jeers from the pub­lic but asked the crowd not to hold the im­mi­gra­tion work­ers re­spon­si­ble for the im­passe."They came to work be­cause they want to work but this build­ing com­pro­mis­es their safe­ty, health and wel­fare."The peo­ple to hold re­spon­si­ble is the Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty and those per­sons who are re­spon­si­ble for of­fice ac­com­mo­da­tion," he said.

Duke said the im­mi­gra­tion work­ers sur­ren­dered their rights by agree­ing to work for half-day but that was not enough.One per­son came to col­lect a pass­port for his wife, who had to trav­el to the UK for med­ical treat­ment. On the verge of tears, he said: "Since April 13, some­thing that sup­posed to take two or three weeks and up to now she can't get a pass­port to trav­el to seek med­ical at­ten­tion. It is ridicu­lous and I smelling death."Duke and them fel­las in­side there hold­ing we to ran­som."

One woman said she had to pay $11,000 to change her trav­el plans be­cause she could not get her grand­son's pass­port on time. "We are sup­posed to trav­el to Lon­don on June 30. I paid to get the pass­port ex­pe­dit­ed and up to now I haven't got­ten it. On Fri­day they told me it was print­ed but it had not come down yet," she said.An­oth­er woman, who works and lives in the US, said she could lose her job. "I ap­plied for this pass­port in New York since Feb­ru­ary and they said I have to come here to get it."I have to start to work Fri­day and now I have to make up some ex­cuse to tell my boss, oth­er­wise I'll end up home­less."I liv­ing New York and this is the first time I came back in 14 years and I'm not com­ing back again be­cause of things like this," she said. –With re­port­ing by Kevon Felmine

Govt team meets on is­sues

An in­ter­im com­mit­tee, set up to ad­dress is­sues raised by Im­mi­gra­tion Di­vi­sion staff, is ex­pect­ed to hold its first meet­ing to­day, Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Gary Grif­fith said yes­ter­day.

While ex­plain­ing the ra­tio­nale for the Gov­ern­ment's lat­est at­tempt to avert the cri­sis caused by al­most sev­en weeks of ac­tion by staff over health and safe­ty con­cerns, Grif­fith said:"There is a dire need more than ever for both par­ties to come to a sound res­o­lu­tion in the in­ter­est of cit­i­zens who are be­ing heav­i­ly in­con­ve­nienced."Grif­fith said the de­ci­sion to form the com­mit­tee came af­ter a meet­ing with Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion (PSA) of­fi­cials, im­mi­gra­tion work­ers and Hous­ing and Ur­ban De­vel­op­ment Min­is­ter Dr. Roodal Mooni­lal at the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter, St Clair, yes­ter­day."Mooni­lal, in his con­tri­bu­tion, said his min­istry is poised to as­sist in swift­ly rem­e­dy­ing the health and safe­ty is­sues of work­ers to en­sure that busi­ness can re­turn to nor­mal for all as soon as pos­si­ble," the re­lease said.

What's wrong atthe pass­port of­fice

The find­ings of the Os­ha re­port, dat­ed Ju­ly 4 and based on an in­spec­tion of 67 Fred­er­ick Street, in­clud­ed:

�2 The build­ing sat­is­fied six out of 37 health and safe­ty pa­ra­me­ters.

�2 No emer­gency plan based on the most re­cent risk as­sess­ment.

�2 No valid fire cer­tifi­cate from the Fire Au­thor­i­ty.

�2 En­tire stair­case was too nar­row.

�2 Hang­ing wires through­out the build­ing.

�2 All floors over­crowd­ed with staff and stor­age box­es.

�2 In­suf­fi­cient wa­ter stor­age.

�2 In­ad­e­quate ven­ti­la­tion.

�2 Non-func­tion­al emer­gency light­ing.

His­to­ry of the dis­pute

The ac­tion by the im­mi­gra­tion work­ers start­ed on May 14 as part of a se­ries of PSA-led protests against poor health and safe­ty work­ing con­di­tions in the pub­lic ser­vice.On Thurs­day, Min­is­ter of Labour Er­rol Mc Leod got an in­junc­tion from the In­dus­tri­al Court which pre­vent­ed work­ers of the Im­mi­gra­tion Di­vi­sion from tak­ing fur­ther in­dus­tri­al ac­tion.The court or­der said: "The pub­lic of­fi­cers are here­by re­strained from tak­ing and/or con­tin­u­ing to take such in­dus­tri­al ac­tion with­in the mean­ing and pro­vi­sions of the In­dus­tri­al Re­la­tions Act un­til fur­ther or­der."?