Richard Lord

Eight work­ers dis­missed from the T&T Con­sulate in New York have writ­ten to Am­bas­sador in Wash­ing­ton Neil Parsan and the Oil­fields Work­ers' Trade Union (OW­TU) to be re­in­stat­ed. The T&T Guardian un­der­stands that Parsan was com­pil­ing a re­port on the mat­ter. The work­ers claim a high-rank­ing of­fi­cial at the con­sulate in New York "sum­mar­i­ly" dis­missed them.

"We want our jobs back," the work­ers de­mand­ed in a let­ter, dat­ed Ju­ly 18, to the OW­TU. For­mer se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cer Ash­ton Hos­ford, in a Ju­ly 7 let­ter to Parsan, said he did not feel the of­fi­cial re­spect­ed him. He said: "There was a post built specif­i­cal­ly for se­cu­ri­ty pur­pos­es and it was re­moved when (the of­fi­cial) came...I was giv­en a wood­en ta­ble and chair."

He said his life was threat­ened while on du­ty at the con­sulate one day. He re­called: "A na­tion­al was hav­ing a prob­lem with the in­ter­view­ing of­fi­cer and want­ed to go in­to the of­fice area that read, 'No Unau­tho­rised En­try.' "When I ap­proached him and told him that area was off lim­its, the prob­lem es­ca­lat­ed. He held on to me and we end­ed up on the floor of the pub­lic area."

He said when the of­fi­cial ar­rived at the con­sulate, staff mem­bers were told to take all their va­ca­tion. He said he was still owed mon­ey for work done, and had felt "stressed and in­tim­i­dat­ed" since the of­fi­cial be­gan work­ing at the con­sulate. Hos­ford said he had many fi­nan­cial com­mit­ments to meet. "What should I do now, Mr Am­bas­sador?" he asked.

"I need your help, Sir, and I need my job back." Cler­i­cal of­fi­cer Su­san Butch­er-David, in her let­ter to Parsan, said her ser­vice was ter­mi­nat­ed "abrupt­ly and sum­mar­i­ly." She said while she was clear­ing out her be­long­ings, an of­fi­cial "hov­ered about as though I was a felon rather than an em­ploy­ee with 12 years of loy­al ser­vice."

Butch­er-David added: "The shock and un­cer­tain­ty cre­at­ed by the awk­ward man­ner in which this whole mat­ter has been han­dled has al­so led to ug­ly spec­u­la­tion about the mo­tives for this heart­less cleans­ing," and re­ferred to "wor­ri­some mur­murs in the po­lit­i­cal are­na."

An­oth­er for­mer em­ploy­ee with two years' ser­vice told Parsan: "In the last cou­ple of months, the work­place got very tense and work­ers felt un­set­tled. "We were told to be kind to our na­tion­als each and every day, but who was kind to us?" she added.

Michael Brath­waite, who had been em­ployed at the con­sulate since 1989, in var­i­ous po­si­tions, said in his let­ter that over the past 23 years, he had worked un­der "many dif­fer­ent regimes and have ad­just­ed to suit, but un­for­tu­nate­ly I have been very un­easy since the new regime came in."

He said af­ter be­ing dis­missed, he was es­cort­ed out of the build­ing as though he was a crim­i­nal. The for­mer work­ers com­plain of be­ing dis­missed af­ter fail­ing an ex­am they were not pre­pared for. Char­maine An­der­son-Smith, whose job en­tailed in­ter­view­ing na­tion­als, da­ta en­try and cus­toms ser­vices, al­so ex­pressed con­cern about hav­ing to write the ex­am.

An­der­son-Smith told Parsan: "This has af­fect­ed my health due to loss of ap­petite and I am hav­ing day/night­mares not know­ing how I am go­ing to sup­port my­self and my daugh­ter." New For­eign Af­fairs Min­is­ter Win­ston Dook­er­an was un­avail­able for com­ment when the T&T Guardian tried to reach him yes­ter­day.

For­mer For­eign Af­fairs and Com­mu­ni­ca­tions min­is­ter Dr Su­ru­jrat­tan Ram­bachan said it was not prop­er for min­is­ters to com­ment on is­sues af­fect­ing oth­er min­istries. Con­sul Gen­er­al Rudrawa­tee Nan Ram­goolam said she would com­ment on the de­vel­op­ment on­ly af­ter a state­ment had been is­sued by the Min­istry of For­eign Af­fairs, as it would be a breach of pro­to­col to com­ment on the mat­ter at this stage.

The dis­missed work­ers are:

Su­san Butch­er-David-12 years' ser­vice

An­geli­na Ram­lal-sev­en years

Judy Greaves-five years

Michael Brath­waite-23 years

Ash­ton Hors­ford-18 years

Chery­lann Eti­enne-three years

April Stur­geon-nine months

Char­maine An­der­son-Smith-sev­en months.