The T&T Man­u­fac­tur­ers' As­so­ci­a­tion (TTMA) yes­ter­day called for an end to the strike by work­ers at Trinidad Ce­ment Ltd (TCL), and the sub­se­quent lock­out ac­tion ini­ti­at­ed by the com­pa­ny. De­clar­ing the strike ac­tion as "one of na­tion­al im­por­tance," the TTMA said it re­quires the "ur­gent in­ter­ven­tion" of the Min­is­ter of Labour and Small and Mi­cro En­ter­prise De­vel­op­ment.

"The as­so­ci­a­tion wrote to the min­is­ters of Labour, Trade, Works and Hous­ing with­in days of the union's an­nounce­ment of their in­ten­tion to strike, seek­ing their in­ter­ven­tion in the on­go­ing dis­pute, which has now ev­i­dent­ly reached a stale­mate. "The TTMA is urg­ing both sides to re­turn to the bar­gain­ing ta­ble and re­sume ne­go­ti­a­tions, in or­der to come to a swift res­o­lu­tion of this im­passe," the TTMA said in a state­ment.

The TTMA said TCL is not on­ly a val­ued mem­ber, but al­so a vi­tal com­po­nent of this coun­try's non-en­er­gy man­u­fac­tur­ing and con­struc­tion sec­tors. "TCL con­tributes to all as­pects of the econ­o­my: em­ploy­ment, eco­nom­ic val­ue added, and, ul­ti­mate­ly, gross do­mes­tic prod­uct. Pro­longed in­dus­tri­al ac­tion at the com­pa­ny will there­fore have deep and wide im­pact on this coun­try's econ­o­my," said the TTMA in a state­ment.

"The as­so­ci­a­tion notes that the work stop­page at the com­pa­ny's Clax­ton Bay and Mayo fa­cil­i­ties is crip­pling the op­er­a­tions of many of its mem­bers op­er­at­ing in the con­struc­tion sec­tor, and in con­struc­tion-re­lat­ed ac­tiv­i­ties." TCL's prod­ucts are in­puts in­to the process­es of many oth­er com­pa­nies such as Trinidad Ag­gre­gate Prod­ucts, Al­ston's Build­ing En­ter­pris­es Ltd, Coos­al's Con­struc­tion, Spe­cial­ist Chem­i­cals Ltd, Pre­cast Con­crete Ser­vices Ltd, Bon­sal Caribbean and Pres-T-Con Ltd, which em­ploy thou­sands of per­sons.

"As the strike con­tin­ues for a ninth day, sev­er­al of these com­pa­nies are now fac­ing a com­plete shut­down of op­er­a­tions as sup­plies of ce­ment run low. "Fur­ther, the in­dus­tri­al ac­tion at TCL will be felt through­out the econ­o­my of T&T, as sev­er­al Gov­ern­ment-led projects are at risk of de­lays, cost over­runs and job loss­es," read the state­ment. The TTMA not­ed that the con­struc­tion sec­tor has yet to ful­ly re­cov­er from the de­bil­i­tat­ing ef­fect of the glob­al re­ces­sion, and is work­ing to­wards achiev­ing the high lev­els of growth ex­pe­ri­enced pri­or to its on­set in 2009.

"Ac­cord­ing to the Cen­tral Bank's lat­est eco­nom­ic bul­letin, the con­struc­tion sec­tor record­ed mod­er­ate growth in late 2011, for the first time since ear­ly 2010," the state­ment end­ed. Mean­while, in a state­ment on Mon­day, the Min­istry of Labour said that four con­cil­i­a­tion meet­ings were held at the min­istry's San Fer­nan­do of­fices in Feb­ru­ary. The min­istry said af­ter the fourth meet­ing, Oil­fields Work­ers Trade Union was in­vit­ed to sign an ex­ten­sion of time un­der Sec­tion 55 (2)of the In­dus­tri­al Re­la­tions Act Chap­ter 88:01, to fa­cil­i­tate fur­ther con­cil­i­a­tion in the trade dis­pute.

Ac­cord­ing to the min­istry: "It is to be not­ed that Par­ties in a dis­pute of this na­ture have the right to take In­dus­tri­al Ac­tion, how­ev­er, once such ac­tion has com­menced, any fur­ther in­ter­ven­tion by the Min­is­ter of Labour, must be at the re­quest of both Par­ties (ie TCL and OW­TU) and with the clear un­der­stand­ing of their will­ing­ness to ex­er­cise the flex­i­bil­i­ty and com­pro­mise that could bring about a res­o­lu­tion of the dis­pute in ques­tion."