OT­TO CAR­RING­TON

Se­nior Re­porter

ot­to.car­ring­ton@cnc3.co.tt

Works and Trans­port Min­is­ter Ro­han Sinanan says the ball is in the court of the Sea­men and Wa­ter­front Work­ers Trade Union (SWW­TU) as it re­lates to end­ing the cur­rent im­passe at the Port of Port-of-Spain. 

For the past few weeks, work­ers have been tak­ing in­dus­tri­al ac­tion, which has crip­pled op­er­a­tions at the port. 

Yes­ter­day, op­er­a­tions at the port re­turned to nor­mal, with work tak­ing place in all sec­tions, ac­cord­ing to the min­is­ter and Port chair­man Lyle Alexan­der. 

The ma­jor is­sue of con­tention for the work­ers has been a 12 per cent wage in­crease, which they claimed was agreed to with the port man­age­ment for the bar­gain­ing pe­ri­od from 2014 to 2019. 

How­ev­er, Min­is­ter Sinanan said yes­ter­day that the of­fer was not sanc­tioned by the CPO (Chief Per­son­nel Of­fi­cer). He said the of­fer on the ta­ble now is four per cent. 

He said talks were un­der­way with Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert to place the of­fer of five per cent for the 2020 to 2022 pe­ri­od for the SWW­TU mem­bers. 

For over a month, work­ers at the port have en­gaged in strate­gic in­dus­tri­al ac­tion, im­pact­ing op­er­a­tions. But as they worked yes­ter­day, port of­fi­cials de­cid­ed not to di­vert ves­sels to the Port of Point Lisas. 

Sinanan ex­plained, “There’s no need for that at this time. The Port of Port-of-Spain is still han­dling all ves­sels, and op­er­a­tions are flow­ing smooth­ly again. How­ev­er, we’re prepar­ing for con­tin­gen­cies, so if di­ver­sion be­comes nec­es­sary, we’re ready to act. Since yes­ter­day, every­thing has re­turned to nor­mal at the Port-of-Spain.” 

The min­is­ter not­ed that with some ship­ping lines by­pass­ing Trinidad, he has been in dis­cus­sions with the lo­cal Ship­ping As­so­ci­a­tion. 

“I am in con­tact with the Ship­ping As­so­ci­a­tion, and they are al­so in touch with their lines. Port op­er­a­tions and the chal­lenges we’re fac­ing aren’t unique to Trinidad and To­ba­go; ports world­wide face sim­i­lar is­sues. There is a lev­el of un­der­stand­ing as long as there’s a clear plan to re­solve these chal­lenges,” he said. 

He al­so dis­missed re­ports claim­ing there were over 700 ship­ping con­tain­ers bound for ex­port “sit­ting at the port.” 

“We al­ways have con­tain­ers at the port, but with the re­cent two-day slow­down when ves­sels weren’t of­fload­ing, there was a tem­po­rary buildup. Since Wednes­day, how­ev­er, op­er­a­tions have re­sumed, and ves­sels are both of­fload­ing and load­ing as part of the on­go­ing process,” Sinanan ex­plained. 

Mean­while, SWW­TU pres­i­dent gen­er­al Michael An­nisette said the union has sent mul­ti­ple let­ters re­quest­ing meet­ings with port of­fi­cials, but no talks have been sched­uled.

“If the port is as crit­i­cal and im­por­tant as it’s claimed to be, then our ef­forts to reach out should at least be ac­knowl­edged. I could send three more let­ters, but de­spite our at­tempts, we haven’t re­ceived any re­sponse—not from the chair­man, the act­ing CEO, or the op­er­a­tions man­ag­er. That si­lence says some­thing,” he said. 

The busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty has been urg­ing swift res­o­lu­tion of the port is­sues, as it said the con­stant dis­rup­tions are af­fect­ing their busi­ness­es. 

There have been calls for Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley to in­ter­vene to put an end to the is­sues af­fect­ing work­ers. Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day reached out to Dr Row­ley via What­sApp for a re­sponse. How­ev­er, he did not re­spond up to late yes­ter­day.