Kevon Felmine

Even as im­mi­gra­tion work­ers con­tem­plate a re­sump­tion of work, Gov­ern­ment is think­ing of fur­ther le­gal ac­tion against the Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion (PSA) for its de­ci­sion to de­fy the court in­junc­tion against it.In a press con­fer­ence at his Point-a-Pierre con­stituen­cy of­fice in Mara­bel­la yes­ter­day, act­ing Prime Min­is­ter and Labour Min­is­ter Er­rol Mc Leod said Cab­i­net would meet to­day to weigh all its op­tions, in­clud­ing le­gal ones, as its seeks to end the cur­rent im­passe.

In what seemed a stern warn­ing, Mc Leod said: "I sought the in­junc­tion on the State's be­half and I wish to state on­ly that I en­cour­age di­a­logue and I pro­claim peace but hear this, I do not have more pa­tience than Job. To­day is the sev­enth day."For the pass two weeks, work­ers have shut down op­er­a­tions at im­mi­gra­tion of­fices in Port-of-Spain and San Fer­nan­do, leav­ing hun­dreds of cit­i­zens with­out pass­port ser­vices.

Yes­ter­day marked the sev­enth day since McLeod suc­cess­ful­ly got an in­junc­tion in the In­dus­tri­al Court to pre­vent work­ers from tak­ing in­dus­tri­al ac­tion.How­ev­er, work­ers have since been de­fy­ing that or­der by work­ing short­er hours ow­ing to health and safe­ty con­cerns.Mc Leod said Cab­i­net would dis­cuss mat­ter at length to­day and would let the pub­lic know what it would de­cide to do.

"We are look­ing at all of our le­gal op­tions. At this time, work is be­ing un­der­tak­en to rem­e­dy what­ev­er the con­di­tions, friv­o­lous and oth­er­wise, that has been iden­ti­fied by a so-called re­port done by some in­spec­tor of the OSH Agency."He said he was un­able to de­ter­mine when op­er­a­tions would re­sume at the im­mi­gra­tion of­fices, say­ing that the ac­tion should have end­ed on Tues­day. He said be­cause Gov­ern­ment had ex­er­cised pa­tience and called for di­a­logue, fur­ther ac­tion against the PSA was de­layed.

PSA pres­i­dent Wat­son Duke has cit­ed sev­er­al health and safe­ty vi­o­la­tion in the build­ings that could be detri­men­tal to work­ers' lives. Not deny­ing Duke's claim, Mc Leod said all Gov­ern­ment work places had health and safe­ty con­cerns.He added: "There are health and safe­ty is­sues no doubt at all of our work­places but the OSH Act talks to im­mi­nent dan­ger to the health, to the life and to the limb of the af­fect­ed work­ers.

"In such cir­cum­stances, where there is im­mi­nent dan­ger that will in­jure the health, the life and the limb, there is a par­tic­u­lar pro­ce­dure that they have to fol­low."I am say­ing that noth­ing that has so far been point­ed out, points to im­mi­nent dan­ger that should ef­fect a with­draw­al from the work­place."I sup­port every re­quest and every de­mand for the most ab­solute health and safe­ty con­di­tions but, as I said just now, let us not cry wolf when our in­ten­tions are oth­er than se­cur­ing the door from the wolf."

He said Gov­ern­ment was not about com­pro­mis­ing work­ers' health and safe­ty.