Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Bar­ry Padarath and the Telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions Ser­vices of Trinidad and To­ba­go (TSTT) are at odds over re­ports of con­tract ex­pi­ra­tions at the state-owned tele­coms provider.

Padarath yes­ter­day pushed back against claims that the Gov­ern­ment was or­ches­trat­ing a “staff purge” at TSTT, al­though he ac­knowl­edged that some em­ploy­ees were near­ing the end of their con­tracts.

“How can it be a purge if it is short-term em­ploy­ment that is de­ter­mined by the man­age­ment of the com­pa­ny, not my­self or the board?” Padarath said when asked about the num­ber of in­di­vid­u­als who may be un­em­ployed at the end of their con­tracts.

The min­is­ter said some em­ploy­ees on three-month con­tracts are ap­proach­ing the end of their tenure but de­clined to of­fer fur­ther de­tails on the cir­cum­stances sur­round­ing the con­tract arrange­ments.

“I am ad­vised by the man­age­ment of TSTT that there are short-term con­tracts that will ex­pire, and the con­tracts are for three months,” Padarath said.

“I am ad­vised that some of the ex­ist­ing em­ploy­ees have been giv­en a fur­ther three months by the man­age­ment.”

Padarath al­so con­firmed a new TSTT board will be ap­point­ed in the com­ing days, fol­low­ing the res­ig­na­tion of the pre­vi­ous board in the af­ter­math of the April 28 Gen­er­al Elec­tion. He said the in­com­ing board will be tasked with ad­dress­ing out­stand­ing em­ploy­ment and op­er­a­tional mat­ters.

How­ev­er, in con­trast to the min­is­ter’s state­ments, TSTT’s Cor­po­rate Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Unit clar­i­fied that no con­tracts are cur­rent­ly set to ex­pire at both TSTT and its sub­sidiary, Am­plia.

“There have been no re­cent ter­mi­na­tions or non-re­newals of con­tracts in­volv­ing our team mem­bers, in­clud­ing those in the call cen­tre,” the com­pa­ny said in an emailed state­ment.

“As pre­vi­ous­ly stat­ed, we are man­ag­ing all hu­man re­source mat­ters pru­dent­ly, in prepa­ra­tion for our up­com­ing strate­gic plan­ning ex­er­cise. In the mean­time, we re­main fo­cused on sup­port­ing the con­tin­ued growth of the busi­ness.”

TSTT CEO Kent West­ern sub­se­quent­ly con­firmed that the same em­ploy­ment sta­tus ap­plies to Am­plia and TSTT em­ploy­ees.

Asked to clar­i­fy the con­fu­sion sur­round­ing the non-re­new­al of con­tracts, giv­en the ap­par­ent dif­fer­ence in opin­ion be­tween him­self and TSTT, Padarath said, “I’m told that the man­age­ment will make a rec­om­men­da­tion based on their needs. So, it is not a sit­u­a­tion that we are get­ting rid of peo­ple and clean­ing house and that sort of a thing. This is a reg­u­lar run-of-the-mill sit­u­a­tion that TSTT, from time to time, will hire per­sons on short-term con­tracts based on their needs. So, there has been no move by the ad­min­is­tra­tion to say well we are not re­new­ing and so on, carte blanche.”

Last month, Padarath in­struct­ed TSTT to sus­pend all hu­man re­source-re­lat­ed de­ci­sions un­til fur­ther no­tice, cit­ing the board of di­rec­tors’ fail­ure to sub­mit their res­ig­na­tions fol­low­ing the change in ad­min­is­tra­tion af­ter the April 28 Gen­er­al Elec­tion. 

Mean­while, the Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Work­ers’ Union (CWU) is rais­ing se­ri­ous con­cerns over what it de­scribes as the ex­ploita­tive use of con­tract labour at TSTT.

While re­it­er­at­ing the union’s op­po­si­tion to job loss­es, CWU sec­re­tary gen­er­al Joanne Ogeer called for an im­me­di­ate re­view of the com­pa­ny’s han­dling of con­tract re­newals, par­tic­u­lar­ly in cas­es where con­trac­tors are per­form­ing du­ties pre­vi­ous­ly held by re­trenched work­ers.

“There are per­sons on con­trac­tu­al arrange­ments do­ing work which per­sons were re­trenched for. As a mat­ter of fact, the com­pa­ny is bring­ing per­sons back from the 2022 re­struc­tur­ing ex­er­cise to do jobs akin to their po­si­tion and they are be­ing called con­sul­tants. The rea­son for do­ing this af­ter the two-year pe­ri­od in the col­lec­tive agree­ment is to de­bar them from re­join­ing the com­pa­ny as unionised staff,” Ogeer claimed.

She added, “The com­pa­ny (TSTT) has ceased/re­fused to con­firm per­sons in the em­ploy de­spite at­tri­tion cre­at­ing va­can­cies for move­ment. They have per­sons act­ing and in a re­cent case where the union was proac­tive, they at­tempt­ed to cir­cum­vent same by bring­ing on per­sons as ‘staff re­lief’. Staff re­lief has a mean­ing. If some­one re­tires they are not re­turn­ing. They are bring­ing per­sons in the com­pa­ny on staff re­lief in cer­tain po­si­tions, nepo­tism at its best when the facts are ex­am­ined. This abuse of con­trac­tu­al arrange­ment must be re­vis­it­ed if the com­pa­ny is se­ri­ous about cost-cut­ting mea­sures. There are per­sons in TSTT to do the job.”

Ogeer al­so urged Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials to in­ves­ti­gate the role of Grav­i­tas, a busi­ness so­lu­tions firm, and its op­er­a­tional align­ment with TSTT.

In re­sponse to con­cerns about Grav­i­tas, Padarath clar­i­fied that there was no at­tempt to out­source TSTT’s work to the com­pa­ny. He added that any sug­ges­tion by Ogeer im­ply­ing an ur­gent de­vel­op­ment is un­found­ed.

He gave the un­der­tak­ing that once the board is in­sti­tut­ed, they will meet with the CWU to hear their con­cerns.