Chi­nese con­tract work­ers from Bei­jing Li­u­jan Con­struc­tion Cor­po­ra­tion have de­mand­ed that they be al­lowed to go home af­ter claim­ing that the com­pa­ny has failed to pay them for two months' work.

Yes­ter­day, more than 100 Chi­nese work­ers staged a demon­stra­tion on the south­bound lane of the Solomon Ho­choy High­way. The work­ers, who were con­tract­ed to do work on the Five Rivers project in Ch­agua­nas, start­ed their demon­stra­tion at 5 am, caus­ing a mas­sive traf­fic jam, even on the north­bound lane of the high­way, as com­muters slowed down to look at them. When po­lice ar­rived on the scene, the work­ers said they were not be­ing al­lowed to re­turn to Chi­na and were forced to live and work in un­favourable con­di­tions. The po­lice were then in­formed by the com­pa­ny that some of the work­ers were in the coun­try il­le­gal­ly.

As a pre­cau­tion, the po­lice had the pro­test­ers es­cort­ed to the Im­mi­gra­tion Of­fice, Hen­ry Street in Port-of- Spain. When con­tact­ed, head of the North/Cen­tral Di­vi­sion ACP Shah Mo­hammed said the Chi­nese na­tion­als who were de­tained by po­lice were hand­ed over to im­mi­gra­tion of­fi­cials be­cause some of the de­tainees' sta­tus in the coun­try need­ed to be clar­i­fied by the Im­mi­gra­tion De­part­ment. How­ev­er, when the work­ers ar­rived at the Im­mi­gra­tion Of­fice, it was dis­cov­ered that all of the work­ers were in the coun­try legal­ly and had their work per­mits. Com­mer­cial of­fi­cer at the Chi­nese Em­bassy in Port-of-Spain, Gang Liang, said the em­bassy's main role was to en­sure that the le­gal rights of the work­ers were be­ing ob­served.

He said the em­bassy did not con­done any il­le­gal or vi­o­lent ac­tiv­i­ty and he was on hand to en­sure a peace­ful so­lu­tion could be met. Liang said it was a strict pol­i­cy of the em­bassy to in­form all Chi­nese na­tion­als who en­tered the coun­try that as for­eign­ers, they were ob­lig­at­ed to obey and fol­low the laws of T&T. He said the em­bassy would con­tin­ue to mon­i­tor and in­ves­ti­gate the sit­u­a­tion. A rep­re­sen­ta­tive of Bei­jing Con­struc­tion, Daisy Feng, de­nied al­le­ga­tions that the work­ers had not been paid, and said they were not work­ing in poor con­di­tions. Feng said she could not give the ex­act de­tails of the con­tracts signed be­tween the com­pa­ny and work­ers, but said the con­tracts var­ied by projects.

She said the ma­jor­i­ty of the work­ers had been in Trinidad for 18 months and that the com­pa­ny would be hold­ing talks with them to sort out the sit­u­a­tion. Af­ter leav­ing the Im­mi­gra­tion Of­fice, the work­ers went to the Chi­nese Em­bassy at Alexan­dra Street, St Clair, where they con­tin­ued their protest. But just af­ter 7 pm, heav­i­ly-armed po­lice of­fi­cers took away the work­ers in po­lice bus­es. It was un­clear, last night, where they were be­ing tak­en.