By Sue-Ann Wayow
THE Telecommunications Services of Trinidad and Tobago (TSTT) is just trying to justify a massive retrenchment of workers by disguising it as “restructuring.”
This is according to the Joint Trade Union Movement (JTUM) which is condemning the proposed restructuring by the company.
This is not the first time that the company has undergone restructuring which JTUM said has forced thousands of families into poverty.
JTUM in a statement on Sunday confirmed its solidarity with the Communication Workers’ Union (CWU), in its fight for workers to keep their jobs.
Instead of sending workers home, senior managers should instead be held accountable for poor decisions, JTUM stated.
JTUM referred to previous “restructuring” by the Government in the form of the Tourism Development Corporation (TDC) in which all the workers were retrenched and also Petrotrin which ended in all workers being sent home and also blamed the Government for doing nothing to assist citizens when the Arcelor Mittal steel plant was closed down.
JTUM described those patterns as “Government’s backward neo-liberal policies which were creating greater hardship for citizens.”
It said the Government has plans to privatise the Port of Port-of-Spain, retrenchment plans for Water and Sewerage Authority (WASA), Trinidad and Tobago Electricity Commission, Lake Asphalt, Solid Waste Management Company Ltd, National Petroleum Marketing Company Ltd and others.
The Government “real plans” were to subtly transform a free and democratic state into a privatised socialist society, JTUM implied, a state in which citizens will not be able to fight for their freedoms and rights.
“The Government’s approach to restructuring is simply retrenchment which is an outdated, archaic, and backward approach that the international community has rejected,” JTUM stated.
JTUM in its support for CWU also called for the Government to set up a committee to examine the “mismanagement in TSTT” and called for investigations into the “prop up of AMPLIA” by TSTT and TSTT’s fixed and floating assets.
And JTUM said that there was concern that although the CWU submitted a proposal to Public Utilities Minister Marvin Gonzales on December 6, there has to date been no acknowledgement by the minister of receipt.
Also on Saturday, JTUM had issued another statement condemning the retrenchment of almost 150 workers by Scotiabank TT.
