(Trinidad Guardian) Operations at the Point Lisas port came to a halt yesterday after workers refused to show. The workers are rejecting the Government’s offer of a five per cent wage increase. This was confirmed by president of the Seamen and Waterfront Workers’ Trade Union (SWWTU) Michael Annisette at a news conference yesterday. He said the union would continue to take a principled stand to reject the Government’s five per cent wage cap imposed on its bargaining units. He said workers at the Point Lisas port had expressed their dissatisfaction and loss of enthusiasm “by not accepting work today (yesterday).” Speaking at the SWWTU Hall, Wrightson Road, Port-of-Spain, Annisette said “nothing is happening and nothing is moving” at the port.
Yesterday’s shutdown came after similar action at the Port of Port-of-Spain, when workers downed tools last Saturday and also the weekend before to demonstrate against the five per cent offer. Wage negotiations are ongoing between the SWWTU and management of the Port Authority of T&T. A statement from the Point Lisas Port Development Corporation Ltd’s marketing and business development unit stated operations were negatively affected when workers assigned to the 7 am to 3 pm shift did not report for work. It said the areas most affected were vessel and yard operations facilitating receipt and delivery of cargo. “Management is working diligently to have normal operations resume in time for the 3 pm to 11 pm shift as the stoppage is negatively impacting several of the port’s customers, including shipping lines,” the statement said.
Annisette said the SWWTU would not accept the Government’s offer because it was not in the best interest of workers. “When workers give their life to an industry, the management must ensure that their terminal benefits or retirement benefits are befitting of workers so they can survive and live happily thereafter,” he said. Annisette said a letter dated September 13 from the Point Lisas management advised that it was offering a 2-1-2 per cent salary increase over the three-year collective bargaining period with the merger of Cost of Living Allowance for year one only. He claimed that was the proposal submitted to all state enterprises for daily-rated workers. “This proposal has also been rejected by the union and by the mass membership of Point Lisas to the extent that there is a loss of enthusiasm by the workers, and today we are seeing a shutdown at the Port of Point Lisas,” he said.
On other industrial relations matters, he said “a potential crisis” was looming at the National Flour Mills. He also said he was advised that the union’s refusal to accept the five per cent for workers at the Institute of Marine Affairs would result in the matter being put to the Ministry of Labour as a trade dispute. “People don’t understand the sacrifices that workers make when you are working in a port and how unsafe that environment is and how many workers at Point Lisas and even in Port-of-Spain would have got injured, given the environment in which you have to work under,” Annisette said.
