An­drea Perez-Sobers

Se­nior Re­porter

an­drea.perez-sobers@guardian.co.tt

Hilton Trinidad work­ers have been left anx­ious and un­cer­tain about their fu­ture af­ter Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar an­nounced plans to di­vest the state-owned ho­tel, with em­ploy­ees learn­ing of the pro­posed move through news­pa­per re­ports rather than di­rect com­mu­ni­ca­tion from the Gov­ern­ment.

Three work­ers, who spoke to Guardian Me­dia on con­di­tion of anonymi­ty, ex­pressed sur­prise at Tues­day’s an­nounce­ment in To­ba­go, ques­tion­ing what the pro­posed di­vest­ment would mean for their jobs, em­ploy­ment con­di­tions and con­ti­nu­ity of ser­vice.

The work­ers said they were hop­ing that any new own­er would re­tain ex­ist­ing em­ploy­ment terms and con­di­tions and re­spect the Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Work­ers Union’s role in rep­re­sent­ing staff.

One work­er de­scribed the an­nounce­ment as un­ex­pect­ed and was now try­ing to un­der­stand what would hap­pen next.

The work­er al­so point­ed to a meet­ing in­volv­ing Evolv­ing Tec­Knolo­gies and En­ter­prise De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny Ltd (eTecK) ex­ec­u­tives and Hilton rep­re­sen­ta­tives sched­uled for yes­ter­day, de­scrib­ing the cir­cum­stances sur­round­ing the dis­cus­sions as hush-hush, adding to staff con­cerns.

Guardian Me­dia reached out to man­age­ment for com­ment but re­ceived no re­sponse up to press time.

An­oth­er work­er ex­pressed hope that an in­vestor would pur­chase the prop­er­ty and un­der­take the up­grades need­ed to im­prove the ho­tel, but stressed that em­ploy­ees’ rights must be pro­tect­ed.

“Our hope as staff is that who­ev­er the new own­ers are, the terms and con­di­tions of em­ploy­ment re­main the same and the union con­tin­ues to rep­re­sent us,” the work­er said.

A third em­ploy­ee ques­tioned whether the ho­tel had been placed on the mar­ket be­fore the pub­lic an­nounce­ment, say­ing staff had not been ad­e­quate­ly in­formed about the Gov­ern­ment’s in­ten­tions.

Land and Le­gal Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sad­dam Ho­sein, whose min­istry now has re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for eTecK, re­spond­ed to ques­tions about the pro­posed di­vest­ment by point­ing to the ho­tel’s need for ma­jor re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion and up­grades.

Just last month, the work­ers were grant­ed a six-month re­prieve af­ter the Gov­ern­ment se­cured a new man­age­ment agree­ment to re­tain the in­ter­na­tion­al ho­tel brand at the State-owned prop­er­ty while a longer-term so­lu­tion was de­vel­oped.

Un­der that arrange­ment, Hilton Trinidad and Con­fer­ence Cen­tre would re­main Hilton-brand­ed and con­tin­ue op­er­at­ing un­der Hilton man­age­ment. The prop­er­ty re­mains State-owned through eTecK.

Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Work­ers Union (CWU) sec­re­tary gen­er­al Joanne Ogeer told Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day that the union was seek­ing an­swers from the Gov­ern­ment, eTecK and Hilton man­age­ment, in­sist­ing that em­ploy­ees de­served sta­bil­i­ty rather than an­oth­er pe­ri­od of un­cer­tain­ty.

“The Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Work­ers Union po­si­tion on be­half of its mem­bers is clear, and our po­si­tion re­mains. Hilton work­ers de­serve sta­bil­i­ty, not an­oth­er round of un­cer­tain­ty. This has been our call be­fore, and it will be the con­tin­ued call of the union on be­half of the mem­bers we rep­re­sent,” Ogeer said.

She ques­tioned what had changed since the Gov­ern­ment se­cured the lat­est man­age­ment agree­ment and what the pro­posed di­vest­ment would mean for em­ploy­ees’ jobs, con­ti­nu­ity of ser­vice and col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing rights.

Ogeer ac­knowl­edged that gov­ern­ments might pur­sue di­vest­ment to at­tract in­vest­ment and im­prove com­mer­cial per­for­mance, but warned that re­struc­tur­ing must take work­ers’ con­tri­bu­tions in­to ac­count.

The union, which holds recog­nised ma­jor­i­ty union sta­tus for Hilton Trinidad, is call­ing for mean­ing­ful con­sul­ta­tion and full dis­clo­sure of the pro­posed di­vest­ment arrange­ments, along­side en­force­able guar­an­tees pro­tect­ing ex­ist­ing em­ploy­ees.

Na­tion­al Quar­ries await­ing of­fi­cial di­rec­tion

Na­tion­al Quar­ries Com­pa­ny Ltd chair­man Ash­mead Ghany said the board had not re­ceived for­mal in­struc­tions from the Gov­ern­ment re­gard­ing the pro­posed di­vest­ment and was await­ing of­fi­cial com­mu­ni­ca­tion from its line min­istry, the Min­istry of Works and In­fra­struc­ture.

“Un­til such di­rec­tion is re­ceived, our man­date re­mains un­changed,” Ghany told Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day.

He not­ed the com­pa­ny had made sig­nif­i­cant progress in ad­dress­ing out­stand­ing au­dit­ed fi­nan­cial state­ments and was tar­get­ing com­pli­ance by the mid­dle of next year.

Na­tion­al Quar­ries has com­plet­ed its 2021 fi­nan­cial state­ments and is work­ing on those for 2022, which Ghany ex­pects to be com­plet­ed by the end of this year.

The com­pa­ny is al­so work­ing to­wards bring­ing sub­se­quent fi­nan­cial years up to date.

Ghany said the com­pa­ny’s pro­duc­tion had in­creased through im­proved man­age­ment and ex­pressed con­fi­dence that it could be­come a vi­able en­ti­ty.