Ot­to Car­ring­ton

The Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Work­ers Union (CWU) is call­ing on the Gov­ern­ment to set­tle ar­rears with state-owned Telecom­mu­ni­ca­tion Ser­vices of Trinidad and To­ba­go (TSTT) for their mem­bers.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia at their union hall on Hen­ry Street, CWU Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al Clyde El­der said the gov­ern­ment is ow­ing TSTT $200 mil­lion which he said must be used by the state-owned com­pa­ny to pay out­stand­ing ar­rears.

“We are clam­our­ing for what was owed to us, now the gov­ern­ment seems to be reneg­ing on the arrange­ment but what we are stat­ing here to­day is that the 500 work­ers who were re­trenched are still owed by the state-owned com­pa­ny”, El­der said.

Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley said in Sep­tem­ber that TSTT over­charged tax­pay­ers by $300 mil­lion for pro­vid­ing cam­eras to the gov­ern­ment.

He did not spec­i­fy what type of cam­eras, but in 2016 the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty part­nered with TSTT to set up a pi­lot CCTV/sur­veil­lance project.

El­der said the prime min­is­ter is us­ing this state­ment not to pay TSTT for a past mat­ter that has noth­ing to do with the work­ers.

“The prime min­is­ter not­ed that in fact, as far as the gov­ern­ment is con­cerned, with the com­mu­ni­ca­tion with and our re­la­tion­ship with TSTT, the gov­ern­ment’s un­der­stand­ing is that debt is of an or­der of ap­prox­i­mate­ly $200 mil­lion.”

He called again the gov­ern­ment to pay the mon­ey that they owe to TSTT. The Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al was among the 500 work­ers that were re­trenched in 2019 af­ter the com­pa­ny made a de­ci­sion to close re­tail out­lets and branch­es.

He added that about 200 TSTT re­tirees are try­ing to sur­vive on less than $1,000 in pen­sion per month.

El­der called on the com­pa­ny to come clean on what are its plans for the pen­sion plan.

“We are still call­ing on the gov­ern­ment to please in­ter­vene in­to these af­fairs in TSTT and en­sure that work­ers and the mem­bers of pub­lic and the re­tirees es­pe­cial­ly are treat­ed fair­ly”, El­der stat­ed.