Senior Reporter
kay-marie.fletcher@guardian.co.tt
From Rio Claro to West Moorings, services at several TTPost offices were affected yesterday as approximately 200 postal workers protested outside the office of Chief Personnel Officer Dr Daryl Dindial in Port-of-Spain.
The action comes two weeks after the T&T Postal Workers Union (TTPWU) delivered a letter to the CPO demanding the implementation of a 2011 job evaluation. The evaluation includes recommendations for an 18.6 per cent increase in salaries.
TTPWU’s General Secretary David Forbes said the workers have not been paid although they have taken up the new job descriptions. He called out Dindial, Finance Minister Colm Imbert and Public Utilities Minister Marvin Gonzales for not responding to the workers’ requests.
“Postal workers have been turning the wheels of the economy and have not been properly remunerated. So, they have been operating with job descriptions that arose out of the job evaluation exercise and today they have not been compensated for the jobs that they do,” Forbes said.
“We are calling on the CPO for another time to look into this matter into the implementation of the job evaluation for the workers. Today, across the country including in Tobago, the workers have already signalled that they are very much frustrated by this issue. They are very much disheartened and it cannot be that they are going to work to be productive on a daily basis to serve the people of Trinidad and Tobago and here it is we have a government showing that they just don’t care.”
TTPost General Manager Operations George Alexis said, “We are working with our stakeholders, we are working with our employees to try to minimise service disruption. Naturally, it won’t be 100 per cent normal but any disruption in service would be addressed as best as the Corporation can given its limits and capabilities.”