Ma­jor­i­ty state-owned Telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions Ser­vices of Trinidad and To­ba­go (TSTT) still can­not say how much em­ploy­ees will be sent home or how much its re­struc­tur­ing ex­er­cise will cost as ne­go­ti­a­tions with the Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Work­ers’ Union (CWU) are still on­go­ing.

TSTT sent out a re­lease on Sat­ur­day as a lo­cal news­pa­per re­port claimed that 573 work­ers will be sent home at the cost of $476 mil­lion based on in­for­ma­tion from Latin Fi­nance.com web­site.

“The pro­pos­al is still in its for­ma­tive stages as to the num­ber of em­ploy­ees who might be po­ten­tial­ly im­pact­ed but, as part of mak­ing arrange­ments for the pos­si­bil­i­ty that the pro­pos­al–whether as made or some var­ied form of it fol­low­ing the con­clu­sion of con­sul­ta­tions–might be im­ple­ment­ed, TSTT had to seek fund­ing to cov­er the cost of the pro­posed re­struc­ture. It is on­ly af­ter the con­sul­ta­tions have been com­plet­ed, that the pro­posed size and shape of the or­gan­i­sa­tion will be de­ter­mined, and the ac­tu­al num­ber of any im­pact­ed em­ploy­ees will be known,” TSTT stat­ed.

TSTT said on Feb­ru­ary 1, 2022, it sub­mit­ted to its Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Ma­jor­i­ty Unions (RMUs) as well as its man­age­ment staff, a pro­pos­al to re­struc­ture the com­pa­ny, giv­en the cur­rent re­al­i­ties of the glob­al and lo­cal telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions in­dus­try, and this pro­pos­al is the sub­ject of on­go­ing con­sul­ta­tions with the RMUs and man­age­ment staff.

TSTT al­so an­nounced on Feb­ru­ary 4, 2022, that it had com­menced the process to se­cure fund­ing from the fi­nan­cial mar­kets to cov­er the sep­a­ra­tion costs of its pro­posed re­struc­tur­ing ex­er­cise.

The com­pa­ny re­mind­ed that it has pre­vi­ous­ly stat­ed the pro­posed re­struc­ture has been ne­ces­si­tat­ed by sev­er­al fac­tors in­clud­ing the eco­nom­ic con­di­tions brought on by the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic, in­creased con­sumer adop­tion of dig­i­tal ap­pli­ca­tions like What­sApp and com­mu­ni­ca­tions plat­forms like Zoom which have pre­cip­i­tat­ed the de­cline in lo­cal and in­ter­na­tion­al switched call­ing, the lega­cy costs as­so­ci­at­ed with re­dun­dant tech­nol­o­gy in TSTT’s ex­ist­ing op­er­at­ing struc­ture, and the con­tin­ued in­dus­try-wide trend of sub­sti­tu­tion of low­er-mar­gin da­ta ser­vices in place of voice ser­vices.

“These and oth­er fac­tors con­tin­ue to have a crip­pling im­pact on the com­pa­ny’s busi­ness and its re­sults, with TSTT’s rev­enue falling by $453 mil­lion (TT) dur­ing the past fi­nan­cial year end­ed March 31, 2021–18 per cent less than the pri­or year.”

TSTT in an ad in the news­pa­pers in­formed the pub­lic that ef­fec­tive March 15, 2022, Sean Roach has been ap­point­ed a di­rec­tor and chair­man for a two-year pe­ri­od.

Al­so, Howard Dot­tin has been ap­point­ed di­rec­tor for two years ef­fec­tive March 15.

TSTT al­so in­formed that Wen­dell Berkley, An­nalean In­nis, In­grid Lash­ley and Ju­dith So­bion will con­tin­ue as di­rec­tors at the comp­nay ef­fec­tive March 15.

Union: Fig­ures in me­dia re­port are re­al­is­tic

Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al of the CWU, Clyde El­der, said in an in­ter­view with the Sun­day Guardian that de­spite TSTT’s state­ment that the com­pa­ny is still in the ear­ly stages of ne­go­ti­a­tions and does not have ex­act fig­ures, the in­for­ma­tion in the me­dia re­port seems cred­i­ble.

“I don’t think they pulled that num­ber out of a hat. As a mat­ter of fact, the com­pa­ny has been look­ing for fi­nanc­ing to send home work­ers. Of course, that 573 work­ers they quot­ed to be sent home are a re­al­is­tic num­ber.”

El­der al­so said that when those work­ers are sent home the union will take a “big hit”, but he is op­ti­mistic that the union will sur­vive.

“Yes, the CWU still has a fu­ture. We don’t rep­re­sent TSTT work­ers alone. We al­so rep­re­sent work­ers at Hilton Trinidad and oth­er ma­jor com­pa­nies. We al­so rep­re­sent work­ers from off the street. We will look for more and more mem­bers as we go along.”

Speak­ing lat­er as unions gath­ered at Palmiste Park, San Fer­nan­do, at the event Unite to Fight, Re­sist­ing at­tack on rights of work­ers, El­der said his mem­bers are not id­iots.

El­der said just like Petrotrin, the talk from TSTT man­age­ment is that they are re­struc­tur­ing be­cause the com­pa­ny is not mak­ing mon­ey.

"The au­dit­ed fi­nan­cial re­port showed that TSTT made over $600 mil­lion in op­er­at­ing prof­it. From that $600 mil­lion they took it and they in­vest­ed it and they used it and they made enough mon­ey to reach al­most $1 bil­lion from ac­tiv­i­ties from op­er­at­ing prof­it.

"How does a com­pa­ny move from op­er­at­ing prof­it to a loss of $453 mil­lion?" he ques­tioned.

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