Andrea Perez-Sobers
Senior Reporter
andrea.perez-sobers@guardian.co.tt
The first six months of the T&T Trade and Investment Promotion Agency Ltd (TTTIPA) are not going as smoothly as the Government would have hoped, as several workers are aggrieved at the financial terms of their transition to the new agency.
TTTIPA was established in September last year based on the amalgamation of three prior companies: ExporTT; Invest TT and CreativeTT,
One unhappy worker is an ExporTT employee who requested that her name not be used to protect her identity and who has sought legal advice as she fights for a severance payment.
However, TTTIPA’s chair, Franka Costelloe, who previously chaired InvesTT, said the exporTT worker has not been terminated and would be entitled to her pension benefits, not severance.
The worker said she wrote to the agency’s general manager of Client Services, Dhanraj Harrypersad, on September 30, 2024, for a separation package as she was ready to leave before retirement in 2025.
She noted that Minister of Trade and Industry Paula Gopee-Scoon indicated in a Sunday Business Guardian article on August 18, 2024 that employees who did not want to be part of the new agency, could opt to take severance.
However, in a letter dated October 17, 2024, Harrypersad responded to the worker by stating, “We acknowledge that this was the position of the Minister as publicly expressed. In our view, the separation package was contingent upon the company first making an offer of employment subject to the completion of the transition period and the filling of vacancies. As such your request is premature as we are still in the transition stage and have not made any formal determination of the positions in the organisation to be filled, nor has the company made any formal offer of employment to you or any other persons. Given this reality, your request for a separation package is not approved at this point.”
The aggrieved worker, who did not take this letter lightly, has since retained a lawyer to deal with this matter. She said the amalgamation had been in the making for the past three years and she had been wanting to leave exporTT to migrate, but was told by a senior official under the new agency that a severance package would be available.
She indicated that four other workers went home without severance packages.
In a telephone interview with the Business Guardian, Gopee-Scoon said people are raising issues that have not arisen as TTTIPA is in the process of recruiting employees for the new organisation.
“There are 110 positions and there are 77 people in total. Therefore there’s absolutely no issue with job security. Our first objective is to place people in jobs in a merged institution. I may have been mentioned, as minister, severance, but I would have been very careful to say in the long run if someone is not a fit in the job description, then severance comes into play, but we haven’t even got to that stage,” Gopee-Scoon explained.
TTTIPA chair Costelloe, speaking on the issue, said she met the employee at the first town hall meeting of the agency and they had a conversation. The employee informed Costelloe that she remarried and wanted to go to Canada to be with her husband since the announcement of the amalgamation a few years ago.
“I said that’s wonderful news and you must be looking forward to it and when she explained to me well I’m waiting on my severance before my retirement. I was very confused by that strategy. I said well you know if you want to resign then that is a resignation, but if you’re waiting for retirement and retirement is around the corner in April 2025, then you will retire but people would be positioned into the company. We have 110 positions and 77 people. Retrenchment and severance is the furthest thing as we have positions to be filled,” Costelloe said.
Concerning the other workers affected, Costelloe said at first their names did not ring a bell as they retired last year and wereentitled to their pension benefits once stipulated in their contracts, but not severance as they argued.
Other workers who spoke on the basis of anonymity, said they had concerns about job security as nothing had been told to them and they were hearing things through the grapevine.
“No new job description was shared. They said that eventually everybody has to apply for a new position, but I don’t understand why I have to apply for something or a position in a company that I’m already employed in. I have no intention of applying. The other issue is that we have no job description. What they are attempting to do is by word of mouth ask persons to do new duties,” one worker lamented.
Another issue was the vacation leave of several workers which was miscalculated. The worker said if this was not brought to management’s attention via many letters, nothing would have been done.
Responding to this, Costelloe said, “It was a human error, and persons are allowed to make mistakes, and the matter has since been rectified.”
One worker also shared that she was denied a loan by a commercial bank as a result of how the job letter was crafted saying in the first line that TTTIPA was only formed last September but lower down stated that the worker has been part of exporTT for several years.
“I was denied the loan because of this wording. The loans officer said that the agency was sounding shaky, and no guarantee could be given that I would be able to pay back the loan. This is unacceptable.”
Costelloe indicated that staff morale was “not great right now, I can admit but we are working hard to improve it. I meet with the managers once a week. I am meeting with the managers about what we can do differently. We always start off our meetings by talking about what went well in the last week and what our priorities are for the coming week. What are our big goals to get to know each other by even talking about what’s happening in our personal spaces.”
Union on recognition
The Banking, Insurance, and General Workers Union (BIGWU), which represents the 55 exporTT employees, has been fighting for recognition status since TTTIPA was formed.
BIGWU’s president Don Devenish, who has now taken over the file, said the matter is before the Industrial Court, and the hearing is set for April 15.
“We have already filed our argument, but up to January 2025, TTTIPA had not filed its evidence. In a legal document, the agency said it would meet and treat the union, but that is far from the reality. It’s just like they are playing games,” Devenish said.
He cautioned that the amalgamation may cost more than the TTTIPA executives bargain for, if proper industrial relations are not duly followed.|
Costelloe said she is aware the matter is before the Industrial Court and whatever the outcome of the ruling, the agency would uphold the law.
She added that the agency would be meeting with staff today to roll out the objectives of the agency.
Asked if there was going to be a name change for TTTIPA, the chair kept the new name close to her chest.