The Na­tion­al Trade Union Cen­tre of Trinidad and To­ba­go (NATUC) has strong­ly con­demned a re­cent state­ment by the Down­town Own­ers and Mer­chants As­so­ci­a­tion (DO­MA) crit­i­cis­ing al­leged in­ef­fi­cien­cies and de­lays at the ports of Port of Spain and Point Lisas.

While DO­MA fo­cused on the im­pact of de­lays on busi­ness op­er­a­tions, NATUC em­pha­sized that the hu­man el­e­ment — the chal­lenges faced dai­ly by port work­ers — must not be over­looked.

Ac­cord­ing to NATUC, work­ers have long con­tend­ed with ag­ing in­fra­struc­ture, out­dat­ed equip­ment, lim­it­ed in­vest­ment, in­ter-agency co­or­di­na­tion is­sues, and a short­age of func­tion­al ma­chin­ery, forc­ing re­liance on im­pro­vised meth­ods.

The union al­so high­light­ed the unim­ple­ment­ed 2014–2017 Mem­o­ran­dum of Agree­ment be­tween the Port Au­thor­i­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go (PATT) and the Sea­men and Wa­ter­front Work­ers’ Trade Union (SWW­TU), which was in­tend­ed to mod­ern­ize port op­er­a­tions.

NATUC crit­i­cized the Row­ley-led gov­ern­ment for aban­don­ing the agree­ment for po­lit­i­cal rea­sons, say­ing the de­ci­sion has had last­ing neg­a­tive con­se­quences for both port ef­fi­cien­cy and na­tion­al trade.

“NATUC de­mands that DO­MA present cred­i­ble, da­ta-dri­ven ev­i­dence to sup­port their claims,” the union said, call­ing for com­par­a­tive analy­ses with re­gion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al ports. “With­out em­pir­i­cal ev­i­dence, their state­ments are disin­gen­u­ous, sub­jec­tive, and coun­ter­pro­duc­tive.”

The union stressed that port ef­fi­cien­cy should not be mea­sured sole­ly by con­tain­er move­ment, but al­so by how the na­tion val­ues the peo­ple who main­tain its trade in­fra­struc­ture. NATUC, along with SWW­TU and port work­ers, ex­pressed will­ing­ness to en­gage in a col­lab­o­ra­tive process to cre­ate a mod­ern, safe, and ef­fi­cient port sys­tem that ben­e­fits work­ers, busi­ness­es, and the econ­o­my.