Ot­to Car­ring­ton

Se­nior Re­porter

ot­to.car­ring­ton@cnc3.co.tt

The Sea­men and Wa­ter­front Work­ers’ Trade Union (SWW­TU) is ac­cus­ing Na­tion­al Flour Mills (NFM) of stalling ne­go­ti­a­tions on two col­lec­tive agree­ments, near­ly two years af­ter pro­pos­als were sub­mit­ted.

NFM SWW­TU branch chair­man Nazreen Haynes-Davis, who led a protest out­side the com­pa­ny in Port-of-Spain yes­ter­day, said the union has faced re­peat­ed post­pone­ments and lim­it­ed progress de­spite sub­mit­ting pro­pos­als in May 2024.

“We have been in ne­go­ti­a­tion mode for al­most two years now, and every time we meet with the com­pa­ny, there’s al­ways a de­lay,” Haynes-Davis said.

“We be­lieve it’s a stall tac­tic be­cause the com­pa­ny has put off ne­go­ti­a­tions more than nine times. We have on­ly met five times, and this is near­ly two years af­ter sub­mit­ting the pro­pos­als for the col­lec­tive agree­ments.”

Ap­prox­i­mate­ly 300 em­ploy­ees are cov­ered un­der the two bar­gain­ing units.Haynes-Davis said a key stick­ing point is the com­pa­ny’s three per cent wage pro­pos­al.

“It has nev­er moved. It is three per cent. No, we don’t think it’s fair. Con­sid­er­ing the con­di­tions un­der which these work­ers op­er­ate, a bet­ter com­pen­sa­tion pack­age must be con­sid­ered,” she said.

She al­so point­ed to NFM’s re­port­ed fi­nan­cial per­for­mance, claim­ing the com­pa­ny record­ed ap­prox­i­mate­ly $42 mil­lion in prof­its last year and $37 mil­lion the year be­fore.

“We are just ask­ing for se­ri­ous con­sid­er­a­tion for our wages,” she added.

Ac­cord­ing to Haynes-Davis, ne­go­ti­a­tions were de­ferred three times in Jan­u­ary alone. She said pre­vi­ous ex­pla­na­tions from the com­pa­ny cit­ed board ap­proval is­sues.

“The is­sue be­fore, when they put it off, was that our board did not ap­prove the salary in­creas­es. Then we switched boards, and it was the same rea­son. We don’t think that all the boards are un­will­ing to con­sid­er wage in­creas­es,” she said.

De­scrib­ing the de­lays as un­rea­son­able, she warned the union is pre­pared to pur­sue oth­er av­enues un­der the In­dus­tri­al Re­la­tions Act if the im­passe con­tin­ues.

“It will be a con­tin­u­a­tion un­til we utilise the oth­er av­enues in the In­dus­tri­al Re­la­tions Act,” she said.

Guardian Me­dia con­tact­ed NFM CEO Ian Mitchell but calls to his cell­phone went unan­swered.