An­na-Lisa Paul

The Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Work­ers Union (CWU) wants Fi­nance Min­is­ter Lar­ry Howai to or­der a foren­sic au­dit in­to op­er­a­tions at state-owned TSTT.

Mak­ing the call dur­ing a press brief­ing at the CWU Hall in Port-of-Spain yes­ter­day, sec­re­tary gen­er­al Joseph Re­my ac­cused the com­pa­ny of "hard­core nepo­tism" and un­fair and un­eth­i­cal hir­ing prac­tices.

He said TSTT's man­age­ment was plan­ning to send home 25 per cent of the 2,800-mem­ber work­force, and 200 work­ers, who are not mem­bers of the bar­gain­ing unit, have ac­cept­ed vol­un­tary sep­a­ra­tion and ear­ly en­hanced re­tire­ment pack­ages (VSEP/EERP) and will be leav­ing the com­pa­ny over the next five months. Re­my said an­oth­er 500 work­ers are now be­ing tar­get­ed.

Re­my said staff re­duc­tions are part of TSTT'S strate­gic five-year plan to re­duce op­er­at­ing costs and had been re­vealed by act­ing CEO George Hill at a re­cent break­fast fo­rum.

Re­my said the com­pa­ny's aim is to re­duce the num­ber of bar­gain­ing unit work­ers and to re­duce the wage bill to around 40 to 45 per cent of rev­enue. He said a $1.5 bil­lion loan is be­ing ne­go­ti­at­ed and 50 per cent of it will go to­ward VSEP/EERP.

The CWU leader de­scribed this as "an ob­scene at­tempt by the com­pa­ny to gain pub­lic sym­pa­thy as they con­tin­ue their at­tack on bar­gain­ing unit work­ers." He said the union had not been ap­proached by TSTT's man­age­ment on the mat­ter.

"There is no ap­proved VSEP/EERP in place at this time for bar­gain­ing unit staff at TSTT."

Talks be­tween TSTT and the CWU broke down ear­li­er this month and the mat­ter will be re­ferred to the Labour Min­istry as a trade dis­pute.

"It is ap­par­ent that some­body else is now in con­trol of TSTT and it does not ap­pear to be the act­ing CEO. Some­body else from the board lev­el who has strong links to a po­lit­i­cal par­ty has to be in con­trol of TSTT be­cause the de­ci­sions that are be­ing tak­en do not au­gur well and are not in the best in­ter­est and vi­a­bil­i­ty of TSTT and the com­pa­ny's prof­itabil­i­ty," Re­my said.

The union leader al­so ques­tioned lease arrange­ments for a pub­lic of­fice at Car­o­line Build­ing in To­ba­go. He said work­ers there were not told that heavy con­struc­tion and ren­o­va­tion work would be tak­ing place. The CWU is ad­vis­ing the pub­lic not to vis­it that of­fice as work­ers have ex­er­cised their rights un­der Sec­tion 15 of the Oc­cu­pa­tion­al Safe­ty and Health Act not to work in un­healthy con­di­tions.