Akash Sama­roo

Lead Ed­i­tor-Pol­i­tics

akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

The Na­tion­al Trade Union Cen­tre of Trinidad and To­ba­go (NATUC) is call­ing on Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar to re­con­sid­er her re­fusal to en­gage the Steel Work­ers’ Union of Trinidad and To­ba­go (SWUTT) over the re­open­ing of the for­mer Arcelor­Mit­tal steel plant at Point Lisas.

NATUC gen­er­al sec­re­tary Michael An­nisette says while they wel­come the in­vest­ment by Unit­ed States-based Pin­na­cle Steel and Vana­di­um Cor­po­ra­tion, through its lo­cal sub­sidiary Ibis Steel Com­pa­ny, eco­nom­ic de­vel­op­ment must be ac­com­pa­nied by mean­ing­ful con­sul­ta­tion with or­gan­ised labour.

The call comes one week af­ter Per­sad-Bisses­sar re­ject­ed SWUTT pres­i­dent Tim­o­thy Bai­ley’s re­quest for dis­cus­sions with the Gov­ern­ment and the new plant own­ers, say­ing the union and Bai­ley were not stake­hold­ers in the project and there was there­fore no need for ei­ther the Gov­ern­ment or Pin­na­cle Steel to en­gage them.

But in a state­ment yes­ter­day, NATUC said it “re­spect­ful­ly dis­agrees” with that po­si­tion, ar­gu­ing that SWUTT’s decades of rep­re­sen­ta­tion in the steel in­dus­try and the ex­pe­ri­ence of its for­mer mem­bers give the union a le­git­i­mate in­ter­est in the plant’s re­vival.

NATUC said SWUTT’s re­quest for con­sul­ta­tion was nei­ther un­rea­son­able nor in­ap­pro­pri­ate, par­tic­u­lar­ly since for­mer work­ers con­tin­ue to be af­fect­ed by the plant’s clo­sure in 2016.

NATUC said mean­ing­ful di­a­logue among Gov­ern­ment, em­ploy­ers and work­ers was es­sen­tial to sta­ble in­dus­tri­al re­la­tions and sus­tain­able de­vel­op­ment.

It warned that ex­clud­ing work­ers and their rep­re­sen­ta­tives from de­ci­sions di­rect­ly af­fect­ing their liveli­hoods could cre­ate un­cer­tain­ty and un­der­mine con­fi­dence in the re­open­ing process.

NATUC al­so backed SWUTT’s push for qual­i­fied for­mer steel­work­ers to be con­sid­ered for jobs as the fa­cil­i­ty is re­fur­bished and recom­mis­sioned.

More than 2,000 work­ers were dis­placed fol­low­ing the steel in­dus­try’s clo­sure in 2016, in­clud­ing 644 per­ma­nent Arcelor­Mit­tal em­ploy­ees. NATUC said it un­der­stands SWUTT has com­piled in­for­ma­tion on the qual­i­fi­ca­tions and ex­pe­ri­ence of for­mer mem­bers, with more than 45 per cent in­di­cat­ing they would be will­ing to re­turn to the plant.

It stressed that the union was not de­mand­ing au­to­mat­ic em­ploy­ment for its mem­bers, but in­stead want­ed ex­pe­ri­enced for­mer work­ers to be fair­ly con­sid­ered for avail­able po­si­tions.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar had pre­vi­ous­ly ar­gued that Ibis Steel is a pri­vate com­pa­ny and should be free to hire any cit­i­zen it con­sid­ers suit­able, say­ing it would be un­fair to re­serve em­ploy­ment op­por­tu­ni­ties ex­clu­sive­ly for for­mer steel­work­ers.

NATUC al­so joined SWUTT in seek­ing an­swers on un­re­solved mat­ters stem­ming from the 2016 Arcelor­Mit­tal clo­sure, in­clud­ing the sta­tus of the liq­ui­da­tion process, out­stand­ing sums owed to for­mer work­ers and fu­ture recog­ni­tion and rep­re­sen­ta­tion of em­ploy­ees for col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing.

The or­gan­i­sa­tion is al­so call­ing for com­pre­hen­sive safe­ty in­spec­tions, risk as­sess­ments and en­vi­ron­men­tal as­sess­ments as the ap­prox­i­mate­ly decade-old fa­cil­i­ty is re­fur­bished, in­sist­ing work­ers must be pro­vid­ed with prop­er train­ing, pro­tec­tive equip­ment and safe sys­tems of work.

NATUC ul­ti­mate­ly called on Per­sad-Bisses­sar to grant Bai­ley and SWUTT an op­por­tu­ni­ty to present their con­cerns and en­cour­aged talks in­volv­ing the Gov­ern­ment, SWUTT, Pin­na­cle Steel, Ibis Steel and oth­er rel­e­vant stake­hold­ers.

“The re­vival of Trinidad and To­ba­go’s steel in­dus­try should unite the coun­try around the ob­jec­tives of sus­tain­able de­vel­op­ment, de­cent em­ploy­ment and in­dus­tri­al progress,” NATUC said, adding that the work­ers who helped build the in­dus­try should form part of that process.