An­drea Perez-Sobers

Se­nior Re­porter

an­drea.perez-sobers@guardian.co.tt

The Bank­ing, In­sur­ance and Gen­er­al Work­ers Union (BIG­WU) is ex­pect­ed to meet with the man­age­ment of the su­per­mar­ket chain Tru Valu next week af­ter it was ad­ver­tised in the dai­ly news­pa­pers that it is up for sale. 

In 2020, the liq­uida­tors of CL Fi­nan­cial, Grant Thorn­ton, out­lined plans to ready for sale prop­er­ties di­rect­ly and in­di­rect­ly owned by CL Fi­nan­cial. Tru Valu and Long Cir­cu­lar Mall are owned by one of the group's sub­sidiaries, Home Con­struc­tion Ltd. 

Con­tact­ed for com­ment, Wes­ley Fran­cis BIG­WU’s labour re­la­tions of­fi­cer for Tru Valu said there are out­stand­ing wage ne­go­ti­a­tions for the past pe­ri­od and the cur­rent pe­ri­od, which are be­fore the In­dus­tri­al Court. 

He said su­per­mar­ket's week­ly paid work­ers have not re­ceived a new col­lec­tive agree­ment in nine years which is for three pe­ri­ods, the two past pe­ri­ods plus the present pe­ri­od. That mat­ter is com­ing up in court in Oc­to­ber this year.   

“I don't know how this al­leged sale is go­ing to im­pact but I can fore­see that it might prob­a­bly have a neg­a­tive im­pact on the court cas­es. But be­yond that, I don't want to com­ment. I've asked for a meet­ing with the com­pa­ny and hope­ful­ly, that meet­ing will come up some­time ear­ly next week.” 

Asked how many work­ers are in Tru Valu's five branch­es, Fran­cis said about 360 and the union rep­re­sents over 100 work­ers.

Tru Valu’s chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer Sunil Ma­hara­jh told Guardian Me­dia that the sale is be­ing han­dled by the liq­uida­tors Grant Thorn­ton and he did not wish to fur­ther com­ment on the mat­ter. 

The news­pa­per ad­ver­tise­ment in­di­cat­ed that since its es­tab­lish­ment in 1978, Tru Valu has emerged as one of the largest su­per­mar­ket chains in T&T, with stores in Diego Mar­tin, Long Cir­cu­lar Mall, San Juan, Trinci­ty and Val­park. 

The ad­ver­tise­ment not­ed Tru Valu's five large su­per­mar­ket stores have a to­tal square footage of 138,000 square feet with the Trinci­ty Mall branch hav­ing the dis­tinc­tion of be­ing the largest su­per­mar­ket in T&T.

“The prime lo­ca­tions are well-es­tab­lished prop­er­ties in high-traf­fic ar­eas across T&T, en­sur­ing max­i­mum vis­i­bil­i­ty and ac­ces­si­bil­i­ty. Each su­per­mar­ket is ful­ly equipped and main­tained to a high stan­dard and in­clude bak­eries, cafes, delis and phar­ma­cies,” the ad stat­ed. 

Long Cir­cu­lar Mall is al­so up for sale.

CEO of the Home Con­struc­tion Ltd (HCL) group of com­pa­nies, Richard Le Blanc said that liq­uida­tors are han­dling the en­tire process and he could not say what would hap­pen to the work­ers at Tru Valu or ten­ants at the mall. 

The High Court ap­proved the pro­posed sale of both Tru Valu and Long Cir­cu­lar Mall in Sep­tem­ber last year.