Carisa Lee

Re­porter

carisa.lee@cnc3.co.tt

The Con­trac­tors and Gen­er­al Work­ers’ Trade Union (CGW­TU) has called on its mem­bers, par­tic­u­lar­ly the ones re­spon­si­ble for open­ing and clos­ing Massy Stores branch­es, to re­turn their keys.

“Do you all val­ue your life, do you all val­ue the life of your fam­i­ly, and if it is you val­ue your life and the life of your fam­i­ly, you will do what is right and hand in your keys,” union pres­i­dent Er­mine De Bique-Meade said yes­ter­day.

De Bique-Meade’s call came af­ter the union said Massy Stores across the coun­try had been robbed six times in the last three years.

In a press re­lease, the com­pa­ny con­firmed the lat­est rob­bery oc­curred on Car­ni­val Mon­day (Feb­ru­ary 12) at its Freeport branch.It said the in­ci­dent was re­port­ed to the po­lice and is cur­rent­ly un­der in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

Massy Stores said the safe­ty of em­ploy­ees is its top pri­or­i­ty. It added that it has dili­gent­ly as­sessed prac­ti­cal so­lu­tions and im­ple­ment­ed sig­nif­i­cant changes to en­hance se­cu­ri­ty across all its lo­ca­tions. 

But the union leader said the in­ci­dent left work­ers bad­ly shak­en.

“It took place ear­ly in the morn­ing as they were about to open the store the rob­bery took place ... There was not much mon­ey avail­able at the store but lives were af­fect­ed ... the work­er was trau­ma­tised, she begged for her life, she told them she have chil­dren.”

De Bique-Meade claimed the com­pa­ny did not re­port the rob­bery to the union be­cause it was a small amount of mon­ey tak­en by the ban­dits.

Ac­cord­ing to me­dia re­ports, the oth­er times Massy Stores were robbed in the last three years were:

• Feb­ru­ary 4, 2024 — Massy Stores El Do­ra­do

• Oc­to­ber 6, 2023 — Massy Stores Brent­wood

• Sep­tem­ber 2, 2023 — Massy Stores St Ann’s,

• Jan­u­ary 7, 2023 — Massy Su­per­store in La Ro­main

• Au­gust 22, 022 — Massy Su­per­store in La Ro­main.

In Oc­to­ber last year, 61-year-old se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cer Sha­mi Soogrim was killed while on du­ty at Massy Stores’ Brent­wood, Ch­agua­nas branch.

CGW­TU’s ed­u­ca­tion of­fi­cer Her­bert Hen­ry said the union had been hop­ing to sit and meet with Massy Stores ex­ec­u­tives since Oc­to­ber 2023 about se­cu­ri­ty con­cerns, but that nev­er hap­pened un­til the sit­u­a­tion es­ca­lat­ed.

“No unique mea­sures or proac­tive mea­sures have been put for­ward by the com­pa­ny in which to ad­dress this sit­u­a­tion that is tak­ing place,” he ex­plained.

He al­so said it’s not the work­ers’ re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to open and close the es­tab­lish­ment and the $200 stipend giv­en for tak­ing on the du­ty was not worth more than their lives.

Hen­ry added that the rec­om­men­da­tions giv­en by the union were triv­i­alised.

He said to deal with rob­beries, the CGW­TU rec­om­mend­ed po­lice pres­ence dur­ing the open­ing and clos­ing hours of the su­per­mar­kets, more CCTV cam­eras and the repo­si­tion­ing of some to cov­er the en­tire store.

Hen­ry said the union al­so want­ed the 96 work­ers who hold keys to the stores to lodge them at the near­est po­lice sta­tion.
But he said the last sug­ges­tion was now out the win­dow, as the union was not con­vinced the safe­ty of work­ers was be­ing con­sid­ered.