‘Swim at your own risk!’

“WE WILL do whatever our Trinidad colleagues say. If in the morning they say ‘Tobago we are shutting down the country’s operation,’ then we will shut it down.” This was the position taken by Tobago lifeguards when asked if they would support protest action taken by their Trinidad counterparts because of stalled salary negotiations.

Trinidad lifeguards, during a press conference last week, threatened that if the salary issue was not dealt with to their liking, persons (including tourists) swimming at the nation’s beaches, especially during the Easter weekend, would be doing so at their own risk, since lifeguards plan to  boycott their duties. The men pointed out that because of the many risks faced daily, they are sometimes refused insurance or charged higher premiums than the average person. There are approximately 48 lifeguards with the responsibility of supervising about eight beaches throughout Tobago.

They took umbrage to claims that they may not be qualified for higher wages or promotions and may have to pursue courses to that effect. “This is not only a skilled job, this is a technically skilled job; lifeguards have to function as doctors, police, boat captains and customer relations agents. With the kind of qualifications that we have, we could afford to go into the Coast Guard or something along that line but this is our passion,” a lifeguard said. “They already not giving us enough money, now they want us to pull from our pockets to attend courses that the departments should be sponsoring anyway,” he angrily continued.

They also made claims of improper representation by their union and those at the helm of the negotiating table and argued that they were unable to feel the trickle effects of the increased tourism benefits. “We have never had any drownings on this beach (Store Bay) in the past 29 years, these incidents only occur when the lifeguards are not on duty and that is a record we would love to maintain,” a lifeguard said. “They (Government) are spending millions of dollars to woo tourists here but they don’t even want to spend $300 or $250 per day to protect them when the day comes? “I want the people of Trinidad and Tobago to know, if anything happens to anyone on the beach while we are protesting, it would be the fault of the Chief Personnel Officer.”