JavaScript is disabled in your web browser or browser is too old to support JavaScript. Today almost all web pages contain JavaScript, a scripting programming language that runs on visitor's web browser. It makes web pages functional for specific purposes and if disabled for some reason, the content or the functionality of the web page can be limited or unavailable.

Friday, July 11, 2025

Unilever workers protest impending job cuts

by

Carisa Lee
2150 days ago
20190821
Unilver Caribbean Limited’s OWTU representative Neil Mc Eachnie speaks about impending mass retrenchment plans during a mid-morning protest outside the company along the Eastern Main Road, Champs Fluers, yesterday.

Unilver Caribbean Limited’s OWTU representative Neil Mc Eachnie speaks about impending mass retrenchment plans during a mid-morning protest outside the company along the Eastern Main Road, Champs Fluers, yesterday.

ABRAHAM DIAZ

There are con­flict­ing re­ports to­day on whether 285 Unilever work­ers will be sent home in a re­struc­tur­ing ex­er­cise at the com­pa­ny.

Yes­ter­day, the com­pa­ny’s recog­nised ma­jor­i­ty union, the Oil­fields Work­ers’ Trade Union, in­sist­ed the com­pa­ny planned to send home the work­ers as part of a re­struc­tur­ing ex­er­cise.

How­ev­er, in a re­lease on the is­sue Unilever Caribbean Ltd said no de­ci­sions had been tak­en on the fu­ture path of the com­pa­ny and work con­tin­ues as usu­al.

But in a protest out­side the Champs Fleurs-based com­pa­ny yes­ter­day, the union and work­ers staged a demon­stra­tion and told a dif­fer­ent tale.

“All ah we in lo­cal par­lance go­ing home,” OW­TU branch pres­i­dent told Guardian Me­dia.

McEach­nie said the com­pa­ny had been dis­hon­est and se­cre­tive about its next move, adding if it wasn’t for a slip-up by a man­ag­er back in June they would have nev­er known about the com­pa­ny’s plans. The union said up­on find­ing out they im­me­di­ate­ly spoke with se­nior man­age­ment and when the ques­tion of re­trench­ment was raised the com­pa­ny told the union this was not the case.

“At the very first meet­ing, they told us they want­ed to talk about the per­for­mance of the busi­ness. How­ev­er, the next week at the sec­ond meet­ing the com­pa­ny con­firmed that they were con­sid­er­ing re­struc­tur­ing,” McEach­nie said.

He added that the com­pa­ny could eas­i­ly re­move re­struc­tur­ing and re­place it with re­trench­ment be­cause from their in­for­ma­tion the in­ten­tion is to elim­i­nate the man­u­fac­tur­ing as­pect of the busi­ness.

But in its press re­lease, Unilever said the com­pa­ny is re­view­ing its op­er­a­tions in the con­text of a “weak do­mes­tic econ­o­my and a chal­leng­ing glob­al en­vi­ron­ment.” How­ev­er, McEach­nie coun­tered that this isn’t true, not­ing the com­pa­ny had made enor­mous prof­its in Trinidad and To­ba­go.

“They boast that mon­ey is not a prob­lem for them,” McEach­nie said.

He said the com­pa­ny’s suc­cess was due to the hard work of the 285 work­ers who may be on the bread­line and he is now ask­ing for con­sul­ta­tion on the im­pend­ing re­struc­tur­ing.

“We ask for no pref­er­en­tial treat­ment, we ask for no un­fair ben­e­fit, all we ask is that the com­pa­ny op­er­ate con­sis­tent with the things agreed to in the col­lec­tive agree­ment,” McEach­nie said.

On Sat­ur­day, Min­istry of Labour and Small En­ter­prise De­vel­op­ment Jen­nifer Bap­tiste-Primus said she had re­ceived sev­er­al re­trench­ment no­tices de­spite some im­prove­ment in the lo­cal econ­o­my. Bap­tiste-Primus en­cour­aged all par­ties to come to the ta­ble with an open mind and com­pro­mise.

“Some­times you have to give up what you want on the right hand to get a bet­ter ben­e­fit for your mem­bers,” Bap­tiste-Primus said.

Yes­ter­day, though, the union said if the com­pa­ny has to close its doors there are a num­ber of is­sues that need to be ad­dressed, such as pen­sion plans and pay-outs for those who were in­jured on the job.

“We have im­plored Unilever man­age­ment to be hon­est, we asked them to dis­cuss this,” McEach­nie said.

In 2017, Unilever Caribbean Ltd chair­man Pablo Gar­ri­do said the com­pa­ny saw no sign of eco­nom­ic re­cov­ery in T&T in the short term af­ter it suf­fered a 6.7 per cent de­cline in rev­enue in 2015 and prof­it af­ter tax fall to $44.5 mil­lion.

But the OW­TU be­lieves there are ways to save the man­u­fac­tur­ing sec­tor of the com­pa­ny and keep the 285 work­ers em­ployed.

“We ask that the com­pa­ny en­gage in gen­uine dis­cus­sions at avert­ing the clo­sure of this com­pa­ny,” McEach­nie said, call­ing for prop­er con­sul­ta­tion on all the is­sues go­ing for­ward.


Related articles

Sponsored

Weather

PORT OF SPAIN WEATHER

Sponsored