Rad­hi­ca Sookraj

More than 200 for­mer Dun­lop and Caribbean Tyre Co Lim­it­ed work­ers, who were re­trenched in 1995, are hop­ing that Min­is­ter of Jus­tice Her­bert Vol­ney and Works and Trans­port Min­is­ter Jack Warn­er as­sist them in re­cov­er­ing their sev­er­ance monies. De­spite a favourable rul­ing from the In­dus­tri­al Court in 2005, the work­ers have not re­ceived a sin­gle cent of the monies owed to them by the US-based com­pa­ny.

In des­per­a­tion, they al­so went to Warn­er with the hope that Caribbean Tire Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed would be made to pay the monies. The com­pa­ny, which pro­duced and ex­port­ed tires abroad, shut down op­er­a­tions in 1998. In an in­ter­view yes­ter­day, for­mer mar­ket­ing rep­re­sen­ta­tive Joe Ram­nar­ine called on the new Gov­ern­ment to im­me­di­ate­ly look in­to the mat­ter to en­sure the work­ers re­ceived their just dues. He said out of 250 work­ers, 35 of them "had gone to the great be­yond with­out col­lect­ing their monies." He ex­plained af­ter work­ers were re­trenched in 1995, they were paid on­ly 70 per cent of their sev­er­ance. "The re­main­ing 30 per cent was with­held with a promise that they would be re­hired. How­ev­er, Ram­nar­ine said they were nev­er giv­en new posts in the com­pa­ny," he said.

He not­ed there was con­tention be­tween the then em­ploy­er Cli­co and the suc­ces­sor com­pa­ny Car­lyle Rub­ber Prod­ucts as to who was li­able.

"We need our mon­ey. It is what we worked for and it is time that we col­lect," Ram­nar­ine said. An­oth­er work­er, Bas­deo Ma­haraj, said most of the work­ers were un­em­ployed and need­ed the monies to sur­vive.

He said: "When they paid the sev­er­ance, they de­duct­ed tax­es from us and up to now even that was not paid back," Ma­haraj said. Matthew Mc Burnie said the com­pa­ny showed no re­gard for the court rul­ing. "They ne­glect­ed the court judg­ment and showed no re­gard for those of us who spent years work­ing hard for them," Mc Burnie said.

An­oth­er work­er, Glen­roy Brew­ster, said he worked 26 years and eight months for the com­pa­ny which was based in Point Fortin. He ex­plained he start­ed work­ing in the pro­duc­tion de­part­ment for 60 cents an hour.

In a let­ter, dat­ed last March 18, Warn­er told the for­mer work­ers he had passed the mat­ter to his at­tor­ney Ash­vani Ma­habir for pe­rusal. The for­mer work­ers said they al­so planned to send a let­ter to Min­is­ter Vol­ney.