sto­ries by RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

De­spite crit­i­cisms of the Na­tion­al Re­cruit­ment Dri­ve by the Bank­ing, In­sur­ance and Gen­er­al Work­ers’ Union (BIG­WU), more than 500 peo­ple con­tin­ued to flow in­to the MIC In­sti­tute of Tech­nol­o­gy in Pe­nal over the week­end in search of em­ploy­ment.

The event formed part of the Gov­ern­ment’s na­tion­al un­em­ploy­ment re­lief dri­ve—an ini­tia­tive aimed at con­nect­ing job seek­ers with work op­por­tu­ni­ties and re­build­ing the lo­cal labour force.

Among those await­ing in­ter­views was 40-year-old Sona Baller­am of Clarke Road.

“I have been wait­ing for a job for three years now,” he said. “I don’t have qual­i­fi­ca­tions, but I have over 20 years of ex­pe­ri­ence as a me­chan­ic, plumber, and handy­man. Since 2021, all I’ve been get­ting is short-term work, and it’s hard.”

He said he came with his son to drop his ré­sumé.

“I am hop­ing to see if I could get through with any kind of work, maybe as a dri­ver,” he said.

Al­so clutch­ing re­sumes were Sa­ian Li­ma and her moth­er, There­sa Go­sine of Pe­nal. Li­ma, who has six CSEC sub­jects and qual­i­fi­ca­tions in cus­tomer ser­vice and cos­me­tol­ogy, said she has been look­ing for work for a year.

“Hope­ful­ly I do get one be­cause it’s quite hard try­ing to get a job in this time. I want to get a job to sup­port my­self and have an in­come to do what I want to do in my life,” she said.

Li­ma said the Gov­ern­ment’s em­ploy­ment ini­tia­tive could help many peo­ple fac­ing the same strug­gle.

“It is go­ing to help a lot of peo­ple, and we are hap­py that the Prime Min­is­ter is help­ing to fill va­can­cies,” she said.

The Pe­nal event was one of sev­er­al tak­ing place across Trinidad and To­ba­go, in­clud­ing dri­ves in Ch­agua­nas, San Fer­nan­do, and San­gre Grande, all part of the Gov­ern­ment’s strat­e­gy to link un­em­ployed cit­i­zens with job op­por­tu­ni­ties through reg­is­tra­tion, skills as­sess­ment, and re­train­ing.

Ac­cord­ing to the Gov­ern­ment’s re­cruit­ment por­tal, there are cur­rent­ly more than 20,450 po­si­tions open across 25 min­istries and agen­cies, cov­er­ing a range of sec­tors from ad­min­is­tra­tion and cus­tomer ser­vice to field and tech­ni­cal op­er­a­tions.

How­ev­er, BIG­WU has ac­cused the Gov­ern­ment of com­mit­ting a “se­ri­ous and reck­less blun­der” by in­clud­ing al­ready-filled po­si­tions among those ad­ver­tised in the re­cruit­ment dri­ve. The union said this ac­tion hu­mil­i­ates ex­ist­ing em­ploy­ees and breach­es their trust.

In a state­ment is­sued Fri­day, the union said the ad­ver­tise­ments in­clude po­si­tions al­ready oc­cu­pied by cur­rent job­hold­ers, call­ing it a po­ten­tial breach of con­tract that could ex­pose the State to le­gal con­se­quences.

The union de­scribed the sit­u­a­tion as dis­tress­ing and hu­mil­i­at­ing for af­fect­ed em­ploy­ees, say­ing it sub­jects them to “un­nec­es­sary anx­i­ety, emo­tion­al trau­ma, and the fear of im­mi­nent un­em­ploy­ment.”

BIG­WU said it would de­fend work­ers’ rights to seek dam­ages for breach of con­tract, emo­tion­al dis­tress, and loss of rep­u­ta­tion if nec­es­sary. It al­so called on the Gov­ern­ment to im­me­di­ate­ly with­draw the ad­ver­tise­ments, is­sue a pub­lic apol­o­gy, and take steps to pre­vent any re­cur­rence.

Dur­ing the pro­gramme’s launch last week, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar urged cit­i­zens to “step for­ward and seize the op­por­tu­ni­ty.”

“This is not just about em­ploy­ment,” she said. “It’s about re­build­ing our com­mu­ni­ties, our econ­o­my, and our hope for a bet­ter to­mor­row,” she said.