Fiery protests in­volv­ing scrap iron­work­ers are in­ten­si­fy­ing as they de­mand that the gov­ern­ment lift a six-month ban on old met­al and cop­per ex­ports.

But al­though the po­lice and army kept watch, set­ting up mo­bile and sta­tion­ary pa­trols, the pro­test­ers still man­aged to block the south­bound car­riage­way of the Solomon Ho­choy High­way, trig­ger­ing a mas­sive traf­fic pile­up from Clax­ton Bay to Freeport.

An am­bu­lance on its way to the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal got caught in the block­ade which was cleared with­in half an hour.

Huge mounds of charred wire from burnt tyres lay strewn at sev­er­al points along Cedar Hill Road and South­ern Main Road, Clax­ton Bay where over 107 scrap iron deal­ers op­er­ate.

The pro­test­ers al­so threw heaps of mud, grav­el and rot­ted de­bris in the cen­tre of the road­way.

Sol­diers used heavy ma­chin­ery to clear the de­bris as fast as the pro­test­ers blocked the road, and three peo­ple were ar­rest­ed and charged with ob­struc­tion.

While the protests burned on the high­way, dozens of scrap iron men met with the Move­ment for So­cial Jus­tice po­lit­i­cal leader David Ab­du­lah ask­ing him to use his in­flu­ence to get the ban lift­ed.

Daniel Joseph said they had no oth­er al­ter­na­tive but to protest.

“I have four chil­dren and I can’t buy food for them. They just shut down the in­dus­try one day and we can­not pay the rent. Do you think we could tell the land­lord to wait six months? No! School open­ing next three weeks, we can­not buy the chil­dren’s school books,” Joseph said.

“I have been work­ing scrap iron for eight years. This sud­den move to shut down the in­dus­try af­fect­ing us re­al­ly bad. We have no em­ploy­ment. The Dev­il does find work for emp­ty hands,” he warned.

Work, he ex­plained, was hard to come by and the scrap yard in­dus­try was their on­ly hope.

“When we were work­ing con­struc­tion, we used to get $350 but the Venezue­lans came and work­ing for $100 per day so peo­ple don’t want to hire us be­cause they don’t want to pay,” he ex­plained.

Kishon Per­ry, an­oth­er scrap iron­work­er said he too was find­ing it dif­fi­cult to sup­port his fam­i­ly.

“I am the on­ly per­son bring­ing in some­thing in my house­hold and since they shut down the in­dus­try, is no food. You think we could go by the neigh­bour and ask for some­thing to eat?” he said.

He added, “Peo­ple not em­ploy­ing we. Some of us have a crim­i­nal record. No em­ploy­er em­ploy­ing us. This is the hus­sle we know about.”

De­von Hayde al­so said the scrap iron work­ers were dis­ap­point­ed in their MP David Lee and the Scrap Iron Deal­ers As­so­ci­a­tion which he al­leged was seek­ing its own in­ter­est.

“Right now we need we work back. We don’t have time and if this ban isn’t lift­ed we will car­ry it more de­vi­ous. It will reach to Bob­bi­head. If we can’t eat, none of you will eat,” Hayde said.

He said, “Clax­ton bay is the hub of scrap met­al. Every morn­ing 107 vans leave from Clax­ton bay to roam the whole of Trinidad. You leav­ing one hun­dred and some­thing fam­i­lies with­out food and it is not right.”

The po­lit­i­cal leader of the Move­ment for So­cial Jus­tice David Ab­du­lah said many rec­om­men­da­tions have been made to reg­u­larise the in­dus­try.

“Gov­ern­ment has failed to ad­dress the is­sues they raised. This in­dus­try is im­por­tant. It em­ploys thou­sands of peo­ple and this in­dus­try earns for­eign ex­change for this coun­try. Every month 5,000 con­tain­ers are ex­port­ed from T&T with scrap met­al. That is for­eign ex­change for this coun­try,” Ab­du­lah said.

He added, “When you shut down the in­dus­try, what will hap­pen to peo­ple? There are truck­ers who haul the con­tain­ers, and the ship­ping agen­cies which process the con­tain­ers are af­fect­ed. This shut­ting down has ma­jor im­pli­ca­tions for thou­sands of peo­ple. It is wrong, un­just and an eco­nom­ic crime against the peo­ple of T&T.”

“We are call­ing for the in­dus­try to be re­opened,” Ab­du­lah added.