SASCHA WIL­SON

Twelve per­ma­nent work­ers from Trinidad Ce­ment Ltd (TCL) re­port­ed­ly have been re­trenched by man­age­ment, the Oil­fields Work­ers Trade Union (OW­TU) has re­vealed.

Dur­ing a press con­fer­ence this morn­ing at the TCL car park in Clax­ton Bay, OW­TU chief labour re­la­tions of­fi­cer, Lin­don Men­doza, said the com­pa­ny claimed the move was nec­es­sary due to sur­plus labour, but he ac­cused the com­pa­ny of sin­is­ter mo­tives.

Men­doza claimed the com­pa­ny is on a dri­ve to re­trench per­ma­nent work­ers and hire con­tract work­ers. He claims that al­though the com­pa­ny en­joys favourable treat­ment in the mar­ket, the man­age­ment's at­ti­tude was cal­lous to­wards the laws of T&T.

"I mean that Trinidad Ce­ment Ltd, al­though it is a lo­cal com­pa­ny, it has for­eign man­age­ment and for­eign own­er­ship in con­trol of the as­sets and op­er­a­tion of TCL,” he point­ed out.  “What they are do­ing is that they are dis­re­spect­ing the laws of Trinidad and To­ba­go, and the work­ers—and by ex­ten­sion, the union, OW­TU." 

The OW­TU of­fi­cial raised sev­er­al is­sues, main­ly the re­trench­ment of the per­ma­nent work­ers——some 56 since 2018. He said re­trench­ment is an ex­er­cise that a com­pa­ny could en­gage in if there is sur­plus labour. How­ev­er, he main­tains it was clear from the meet­ings with the com­pa­ny that man­age­ment can­not sub­stan­ti­ate a claim of sur­plus labour, giv­en that there are sev­er­al va­can­cies.

"Notwith­stand­ing this clear and ob­vi­ous fact, the com­pa­ny has still en­gaged in an ex­er­cise of re­trench­ment, which the union can on­ly term as union-bust­ing,” he al­leges, “where the com­pa­ny is on a cam­paign to ter­mi­nate per­ma­nent work­ers in favour of hir­ing con­trac­tors and con­tract work­ers with­in the or­gan­i­sa­tion.”

Men­doza added: “We are say­ing this morn­ing that that is wrong, it is moral­ly wrong, and it is un­law­ful to do so, be­cause the Re­trench­ment and Sev­er­ance Ben­e­fits Act clear­ly states that the on­ly rea­son or the on­ly cri­te­ria a com­pa­ny can use to ini­ti­ate a re­trench­ment ex­er­cise is sur­plus labour.  We are say­ing that the com­pa­ny does not have sur­plus labour at this time and there­fore, they can­not in­sti­tute a re­trench­ment ex­er­cise."

Men­doza said in­for­ma­tion reach­ing him just be­fore the press con­fer­ence to­day, was that TCL in­tends to shut down the pack­ing sec­tion of the com­pa­ny, a move which will af­fect 28 per­ma­nent work­ers and 17 ca­su­al work­ers. He said the work of that sec­tion would then be con­tract­ed to an ex­ter­nal com­pa­ny.

Con­cern­ing the 12 work­ers re­leased to­day, the OW­TU was served with a no­tice on Jan­u­ary 6th and has since writ­ten to the com­pa­ny re­quest­ing a meet­ing on Fri­day but so far, the com­pa­ny has not re­spond­ed.

The trade union­ist said the let­ter was al­so copied to Labour min­is­ter Steven Mc Clashie.

If there is no res­o­lu­tion, he said, the union in­tends to file trade dis­putes with the min­is­ter.

“We will progress those trade dis­putes to the lev­el of the In­dus­tri­al Court for res­o­lu­tion,” Men­doza promised.