GEISHA KOW­LESSAR-ALON­ZO

geisha.kow­lessar@guardian.co.tt

While is­sues which led to a shut­down at the port of Port-of-Spain seem to be rec­ti­fied, one busi­ness cham­ber is still wor­ried that some labour con­cerns still per­sist.

In­dus­tri­al ac­tion by port work­ers two weeks ago re­sult­ed in a lengthy de­lay of goods to be cleared, much to the frus­tra­tion of busi­nes­sown­ers.

Pres­i­dent of the Cou­va/Point Lisas Cham­ber, De­o­raj Ma­hase, in an in­ter­view yes­ter­day, said there have been com­plaints from his mem­ber­ship that labour is­sues still ex­ist in­clud­ing health and safe­ty mat­ters.

“The labour is­sues are still un­re­solved, and we are hop­ing things can be closed off be­cause we do not want an­oth­er dis­rup­tion com­ing at this time of the year, as we are in­to this high sea­son of Christ­mas goods and Di­vali sea­son. These things can have a huge neg­a­tive im­pact on all the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ties,” he said.

How­ev­er, pres­i­dent of the Down­town Own­ers and Mer­chants As­so­ci­a­tion (DO­MA) Gre­go­ry Aboud told Guardian Me­dia that op­er­a­tions ap­peared nor­mal for a sec­ond day.

“We are very hap­py to re­port and very thank­ful that for a sec­ond day this week the op­er­a­tions con­tin­ue to be nor­mal,” he said.

Aboud added that he re­mained hope­ful this will con­tin­ue for the rest of the week in­to the weeks ahead.

More­so, he hoped for all dis­putes to be set­tled am­i­ca­bly.

“We are al­so hope­ful that the par­ties will con­tin­ue to have con­struc­tive di­a­logue in which they ex­press un­der­stand­ing of each oth­er’s po­si­tions and any of the griev­ances or dis­agree­ments will be re­solved in the in­ter­est of the en­tire coun­try. Be­cause make no mis­take about it, the op­er­a­tions of the port are cru­cial and crit­i­cal to the smooth func­tion­ing of this en­tire econ­o­my,” he said.

Ear­li­er this year, 1,000 work­ers walked off the job, giv­ing port man­age­ment sev­en days to ad­dress health and safe­ty is­sues and agree to a 12 per cent wage in­crease. 

The work­ers’ ac­tion mir­rored strikes in the Unit­ed States, where near­ly 50,000 port work­ers launched a strike ear­li­er this month, dis­rupt­ing op­er­a­tions on the East­ern Seaboard and Gulf Coast ports.

Pres­i­dent of the Sea­men and Wa­ter­front Work­ers Trade Union (SWW­TU) Michael An­nisette had said the in­dus­tri­al ac­tion could cost the port mil­lions, po­ten­tial­ly af­fect­ing over 80 per cent of its rev­enue.

“It will cause sig­nif­i­cant dam­age. The port gen­er­ates most of its rev­enue from re­ceiv­ing, stor­ing, and de­liv­er­ing car­go, and this op­er­a­tional de­part­ment is now af­fect­ed—un­for­tu­nate­ly but un­der­stand­ably—due to the fail­ure to de­liv­er on promis­es made to the work­ers. I es­ti­mate that about 85 per cent of the port’s rev­enue, which could amount to mil­lions of dol­lars, is at risk. How­ev­er, we must not blame the work­ers; they are not at fault,” An­nisette said.