Jesse Ramdeo

Se­nior Re­porter

jesse.ramdeo@cnc3.co.tt

Labour Min­is­ter Stephen Mc Clashie has bro­ken his si­lence, call­ing for good sense to pre­vail sur­round­ing the on­go­ing im­passe over wage ne­go­ti­a­tions at the Port of Port-of-Spain.

Re­spond­ing to ques­tions from Guardian Me­dia out­side the Par­lia­ment yes­ter­day, Mc Clashie main­tained that ur­gent di­a­logue is need­ed to quell the ten­sions be­tween the Sea­men and Wa­ter­front Work­ers Trade Union (SWW­TU) and the Port Au­thor­i­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go (PATT).

“You don’t want things go­ing all over the place and some lev­el of checks and bal­ances are need­ed. I am not sure if that was the case and whether it hap­pened that way.

“I would say to Mr (Michael) An­nisette that we need to con­tin­ue di­a­logu­ing and as we di­a­logue to con­tin­ue the work. Putting 1.4 mil­lion peo­ple at jeop­ardy and I dare say things like med­i­cine, food and so on, is putting peo­ple to ran­som and it is not the way you want to win a bat­tle,” the min­is­ter said.

A wage in­crease ini­tial­ly ne­go­ti­at­ed al­most a decade ago con­tin­ues to be a point of con­tention with port work­ers rep­re­sent­ed by An­nisette strug­gling to agree to the terms of its pay­ment with the Port Au­thor­i­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go. In­dus­tri­al ac­tion by port work­ers since Oc­to­ber 3 has re­sult­ed in dis­rup­tions at the port such as de­liv­er­ies of con­tain­ers and dis­charg­ing of car­go. Ear­li­er this week, the coun­try’s Joint Cham­bers called on the Gov­ern­ment to ur­gent­ly re­solve the on­go­ing in­dus­tri­al ac­tion which their mem­bers stat­ed was caus­ing se­vere dis­rup­tions at the Port of Port-of-Spain.

The Amer­i­can Cham­ber of Com­merce (Am­cham T&T), the En­er­gy Cham­ber, the Trinidad and To­ba­go Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce (T&T Cham­ber), and the Trinidad and To­ba­go Man­u­fac­tur­ers As­so­ci­a­tion (TTMA) in a state­ment, crit­i­cised the Gov­ern­ment’s in­ac­tion in what they de­scribe as a na­tion­al cri­sis at a peak time for ship­ping ac­tiv­i­ty. Mc Clashie said he want­ed the port predica­ment avert­ed.

“You don’t want to dis­en­fran­chise a whole pop­u­la­tion to prove a point, let good sense pre­vail, let us con­tin­ue get­ting our ma­te­r­i­al to keep the coun­try afloat and run­ning.

“We are look­ing at what is hap­pen­ing and it is still in the hands of the par­ties con­cerned which is the SWW­TU and port man­age­ment.”

Mc Clashie added that if the im­passe es­ca­lat­ed and war­rant­ed Gov­ern­ment’s in­ter­ven­tion, he was pre­pared to step in.

“In a mat­ter like this, if it starts to af­fect the lives and liveli­hoods of the na­tion and how busi­ness is car­ried out ... then there are a num­ber of op­tions open to the Gov­ern­ment giv­en that it is an es­sen­tial ser­vice,” he added.

Le­gal ad­vice sought

Fu­elling the fall­out have been re­cent claims by for­mer trans­port min­is­ter Stephen Cadiz that the Chief Per­son­nel Of­fi­cer did not need to be part of the ne­go­ti­a­tions and that Gov­ern­ment had to ho­n­our the 12 per cent agree­ment.

How­ev­er, the Works and Trans­port Min­is­ter said le­gal ad­vice has been sought.

Re­spond­ing to a ques­tion in Par­lia­ment about the mea­sures be­ing tak­en by Gov­ern­ment to ad­dress con­cerns aris­ing out of the port im­passe, Min­is­ter Ro­han Sinanan said the dead­lock stemmed from the union’s re­fusal to ac­cept the ap­proved wage of­fer by the Port Au­thor­i­ty.

He said there was no oblig­a­tion to ho­n­our a 2015 mem­o­ran­dum of agree­ment.

“The MOA was signed by the then board of the Port Au­thor­i­ty of T&T which iden­ti­fied a 12 per cent wage in­crease with­out fol­low­ing the ac­cept­able prac­tice. This prac­tice in re­spect of State en­ti­ties is that the sub­mis­sion will be put for­ward and guide­lines put for­ward for the perime­ters with­in each or­ga­ni­za­tion, each ne­go­ti­a­tion should be held. 

At this time, it is a com­mit­tee called the Hu­man Re­source Ad­vi­so­ry Com­mit­tee, in 2015 it was a sim­i­lar in­ter-min­is­te­r­i­al com­mit­tee chaired by (for­mer) min­is­ter (Lar­ry) Howai. Based on the le­gal ad­vice from two se­nior coun­sel, the PATT and SWW­TU were ad­vised that the MOA is not en­force­able.”

Asked by Op­po­si­tion MP Rudy In­dars­ingh if he was able to dis­close the names of the se­nior coun­sel who pro­vid­ed the ad­vice, Sinanan said he was un­able to do so as the mat­ter could po­ten­tial­ly head to the courts.

But as he marched with the Trinidad and To­ba­go Postal Work­ers Union yes­ter­day, SWW­TU pres­i­dent An­nisette said he and his mem­ber­ship were will­ing to meet with the Labour Min­is­ter and oth­er par­ties to re­solve the im­passe.

“This mat­ter can be solved eas­i­ly, you know. You meet with the union and im­ple­ment an agree­ment. I un­der­stand Mr Cadiz would have con­firmed what I said.

“This agree­ment was signed off on in the Hy­att ho­tel with the min­is­ter, why the Gov­ern­ment in­sist­ing on not im­ple­ment­ing such agree­ment?”

Mean­while, head of the Down­town Own­ers and Mer­chants As­so­ci­a­tion Gre­go­ry Aboud said he was will­ing to meet with the SWW­TU af­ter he claimed An­nisette “mis­con­strued” a state­ment from the cham­bers.