Akash Sama­roo

Se­nior Re­porter

akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

While four of the coun­try’s lead­ing busi­ness cham­bers may have thought they were help­ing to re­solve the stand-off be­tween port work­ers and the Gov­ern­ment, their in­ter­ven­tion could have the op­po­site ef­fect.

The Na­tion­al Trade Union Cen­tre (NATUC) is now warn­ing that their ac­tions might es­ca­late ten­sions and may fan the flames of in­dus­tri­al ac­tion. On Wednes­day, the Amer­i­can Cham­ber of Com­merce of Trinidad and To­ba­go (Am­cham T&T), the En­er­gy Cham­ber of T&T, the T&T Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce, and the T&T Man­u­fac­tur­ers As­so­ci­a­tion, in a state­ment, called on the Gov­ern­ment to ur­gent­ly take what­ev­er ac­tion nec­es­sary to re­solve the on­go­ing in­dus­tri­al ac­tion caus­ing chaos at the Port of Port-of-Spain.

What was in­tend­ed as a move to break the dead­lock left the NATUC dis­pleased with the tone and in­fer­ence of the state­ment.

In a me­dia re­lease, NATUC said, “This state­ment from the cham­bers ap­pears to show a deeply bi­ased, one-sided fo­cus on the com­mer­cial sec­tor’s in­ter­ests, pri­ori­tis­ing car­go move­ment over the le­git­i­mate, long­stand­ing con­cerns of dock­work­ers.”

SWW­TU pres­i­dent gen­er­al Michael Anisette told Guardian Me­dia that their in­put can make mat­ters worse. “If we are se­ri­ous about the ports as the cham­bers want to make us be­lieve, and their ap­proach is to call for the Gov­ern­ment to in­ter­vene swift­ly, that is fu­elling in­dus­tri­al re­la­tions fires that we don’t want be­cause they are fan­ning the flames with those state­ments. Be­cause it is demon­strat­ing that their con­cern is on­ly their busi­ness. Dock work­ers are not peo­ple,” Anisette said.

“You have to bal­ance com­mer­cial­ism in the con­text of work­ers’ is­sues and hu­man be­ings, and com­mer­cial­ism can­not trump work­ers’ rights with the great­est of re­spect to every­one who might say Anisette is crazy. But who gen­er­ates the wealth, and who buys the goods and ser­vices of the same com­mer­cial en­ti­ties? It’s the very same work­ers, so you must find a bal­ance.” The SWW­TU head said the cham­bers have now shown where their re­al con­cerns lie, and it is not in the in­ter­est of dock­work­ers or work­ers in gen­er­al.

Mean­while, NATUC and the SWW­TU de­nounced any at­tempt to al­low po­lit­i­cal in­ter­ests to over­ride sound com­mer­cial de­ci­sions that would bol­ster the port’s op­er­a­tional ef­fi­cien­cy and growth.

Am­cham CEO: We are hope­ful the par­ties come to a res­o­lu­tion

But Am­cham T&T CEO Ni­rad Tewarie said that was not the in­ten­tion at all. He said that they have al­ways tried to make it clear that the role of busi­ness in so­ci­ety was to cre­ate so­cio-eco­nom­ic im­prove­ment.

“When we called on the au­thor­i­ties to act, one can in­ter­pret that how­ev­er one wants, but we are not the ar­biters of the dis­pute. There are mech­a­nisms for dis­putes to be ar­bi­trat­ed, and we would like to see those mech­a­nisms utilised,” Tewarie ex­plained to Guardian Me­dia.

He point­ed out that the SWW­TU and NATUC have al­so called on the Gov­ern­ment to act in the past.

“So I’m not sure our state­ment should be tak­en in that light, and we are hope­ful that all par­ties could come to a res­o­lu­tion that would be ben­e­fi­cial for the coun­try be­cause once this ac­tion per­sists, it is all of us who suf­fer; con­sumers and work­ers,” the Am­cham CEO said.

Mean­while, it ap­pears as if the state­ment from the joint cham­bers has led to some ac­tion from the Gov­ern­ment.

Less than a day af­ter the cham­bers’ re­lease was dis­sem­i­nat­ed, Anisette re­ceived a call from the Labour Min­istry.

“The on­ly thing I can say is I got a call from the Min­istry (of Labour) ask­ing if we could doc­u­ment what are the is­sues be­cause the min­is­ter will like to know, as a pol­i­cy de­ci­sion, what are the is­sues,” Anisette re­vealed.

How­ev­er, Anisette said this con­fused him, and he made that clear to the min­istry of­fi­cial. “I said I find this is strange. Are you telling me that the Min­is­ter of Labour is not aware of the is­sues that are go­ing on at the ports? They said they have a process that if it have dis­putes, they get a break­down from the two par­ties so that the min­is­ter can be aware. What can I say about that? Be­cause I was tak­en aback and was shocked,” he added.

But he said the caller ex­plained that this was part of the of­fi­cial process. Anisette told Guardian Me­dia, “Those is­sues are in the pub­lic do­main, so are you telling me that no­body from the Labour Min­istry was pay­ing at­ten­tion? Or maybe they want it in writ­ing; I don’t know why. Be­cause they said they have to get it from the Port Au­thor­i­ty too.”

The Port Au­thor­i­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go (PATT) chair­man, Lyle Alexan­der, in­di­cat­ed that the au­thor­i­ty re­ceived a sim­i­lar call from the Labour Min­istry. Anisette said he would like to meet with his ex­ec­u­tive be­fore send­ing any­thing to the Labour Min­istry.

Ac­cord­ing to NATUC’s me­dia re­lease, chief among the is­sues for work­ers is the im­ple­men­ta­tion of a 12 per cent salary in­crease for al­most 1,500 dock­work­ers for the ne­go­ti­at­ing pe­ri­od from 2014 to 2017. Health and safe­ty con­cerns for work­ers are al­so a pri­or­i­ty for the union.

Works and Trans­port Min­is­ter Ro­han Sinanan did not re­spond to ques­tions from Guardian Me­dia, nor did Min­is­ter in the Min­istry Richie Sookhai. The Min­istry of Works and Trans­port is the line min­istry for the ports.

All hands on deck to solve im­passe—Gopee-Scoon

How­ev­er, Trade and In­dus­try Min­is­ter Paula Gopee-Scoon, who would un­doubt­ed­ly have a vest­ed in­ter­est in the mat­ter, sought to as­sure that all hands were on deck to solve the im­passe.

“The Min­istry of Trade and In­dus­try has been in dis­cus­sion with the Min­istry of Works and Trans­port on the on­go­ing is­sue and its ef­fect on busi­ness. The MOWT, how­ev­er, re­mains the lead on the sub­ject.

“There’s a whole-of-gov­ern­ment ap­proach, and we are look­ing for­ward to the end of the im­passe soon­est,” she said via What­sApp Mes­sen­ger.

Asked if she is wor­ried about this im­passe spilling over in­to the height of the Christ­mas sea­son, Gopee-Scoon replied, “I am al­ways con­cerned for the wel­fare of all busi­ness­es.”