Khara Per­sad

Telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions Ser­vices of T&T (TSTT) has re­spond­ed to health and safe­ty con­cerns raised by San Fer­nan­do work­ers, say­ing the Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Work­ers' Union (CWU) was us­ing the is­sues as a "mov­ing ne­go­ti­a­tions tar­get."In a press re­lease Tues­day, TSTT said it ex­pect­ed the union to con­tin­ue to "con­jure" health and safe­ty is­sues as lever­age for bar­gain­ing.

In re­sponse to that, CWU pres­i­dent Joseph Re­my con­demned the state­ments made by the com­pa­ny."It is so sad and un­for­tu­nate they have to con­nect this with col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing," he said in a tele­phone in­ter­view Tues­day af­ter­noon.He said the use of the word "con­jure" sug­gest­ed the health and safe­ty con­cerns were not re­al, and link­ing work­ers' is­sues to col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing was an "ab­solute un­truth."

South­ern branch pres­i­dent Dy­lan Charles al­so con­demned the com­pa­ny's state­ment, say­ing yes­ter­day, via tele­phone, that it was ir­re­spon­si­ble, as man­age­ment had agreed with the health and safe­ty is­sues brought up in May with re­spect to the work sta­tion at Cipero Road.Re­my told the T&T Guardian yes­ter­day that em­ploy­ees at Cipero Road com­plained to TSTT man­age­ment on May 16 about poor health and safe­ty stan­dards–main­ly an in­fes­ta­tion of snakes–which led to a re­fusal to work.

TSTT said, how­ev­er, the first re­port of the snake in­fes­ta­tion came in ear­ly Ju­ly, which co­in­cid­ed with the clear­ing of a de­com­mis­sioned sawmill on prop­er­ty ad­ja­cent to the work sta­tion.Re­my said it was point­less to squab­ble over the dates, as the fo­cus should be on re­me­di­al ac­tion to ad­dress the is­sues."Don't at­tempt to do the blame game now. This will on­ly ag­gra­vate the sit­u­a­tion," he said.

In re­sponse to the snake in­fes­ta­tion, TSTT said the com­pa­ny "took im­me­di­ate ac­tion and con­tract­ed dif­fer­ent pest con­trol com­pa­nies on two sep­a­rate oc­ca­sions," and in­spec­tions and treat­ment for the snake in­fes­ta­tion were com­plet­ed.How­ev­er, re­ports sur­faced on Mon­day that the prob­lem per­sist­ed, as Charles showed re­porters pic­tures of snakes from that same day that were on the com­pound.In re­sponse to the newest re­port, TSTT said it would in­ves­ti­gate.

Charles said the com­pa­ny was "clear­ly play­ing with words," as it was mis­lead­ing and un­true to claim the prob­lem was ad­dressed, when snakes were again spot­ted up to yes­ter­day morn­ing."Work­ers are not stu­pid," Charles said.TSTT said it was tak­ing a proac­tive ap­proach to han­dling health and safe­ty is­sues in their San Fer­nan­do of­fices but the CWU was mis­lead­ing the pub­lic in­to think­ing oth­er­wise.

"It is com­plete­ly mis­lead­ing (there­fore) for the CWU to sug­gest that the com­pa­ny has not re­spond­ed to staff com­plaints raised since May 2013."The re­lease al­so stat­ed the com­pa­ny con­sult­ed with the Oc­cu­pa­tion­al Safe­ty and Health Au­thor­i­ty's chief in­ves­ti­ga­tor, where "OS­HA's in­put is serv­ing as a guide for the com­pa­ny in a wide rang­ing as­sess­ment of its prop­er­ties."

As the word "prop­er­ties" sug­gests, the Cipero Road work sta­tion was not the on­ly TSTT build­ing to come un­der fire by em­ploy­ees and the CWU, as work­ers from the St James Street build­ing as­sem­bled on Mon­day morn­ing to com­plain about un­san­i­tary toi­lets, dirty car­pets and ir­ri­tat­ing fumes. Those em­ploy­ees have al­so re­fused to work, claim­ing TSTT man­age­ment has bla­tant­ly ig­nored their con­cerns.

When con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, a cashier from the St James Street build­ing, Curt Tidd, who re­fused to work on Mon­day and yes­ter­day, said he had not heard any­thing from TSTT man­age­ment re­gard­ing the build­ing's poor con­di­tions."There were no changes. It's the same as yes­ter­day (Mon­day). There was no word from TSTT man­age­ment about our is­sues," he said via tele­phone.