Indarsingh: No job safe under PNM government

He called on both Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley and Labour Minister Jennifer Baptiste-Primus to say if they supported Minister of Social Development Cherrie-Ann Crichlow-Cockburn’s stance that TT’s unemployment aligns to world figures and is not too bad .

Indarsingh said, “While the Government may believe the unemployment rate is not that bad, hundreds of workers are being dismissed in both the public and private sectors on a monthly basis.” He recalled Public Services Association (PSA) president Watson Duke last weekend say the Government was planning another round of retrenchment .

“Fifty monthly paid employees, some with over twenty years of service including middle and upper management, technical and administrative staff of the Chaguaramas Development Authority (CDA) are to be retrenched from next month.” Indarsingh also recalled the Government’s recent disclosure of the closure of three State enterprises – the Tourism Development Company (TDC), Caroni Green Ltd and the Government Human Resource Services Company Limited (GHRSC) .

“These three companies employ hundreds of workers who will now join thousands more on the breadline.” Indarsingh said Baptiste-Primus had not yet produced any figures to rebuff his claim that 25,000 persons had lost their jobs under this Government since September 2015 .

He said the Central Statistical Office (CSO) 2016 2nd Quarter Report said 16,200 persons have lost their jobs since September 2015, when the Rowley regime took office .

He reiterated the Opposition’s position that no job is safe under the Rowley-led administration, saying that unemployment continues to rise and this Government is demonstrating that the care and compassion for citizens have been lost .

Indarsingh said that by contrast, statistics show the former People’s Partnership (PP) government created 66,000 new jobs and unemployment remained under five percent. The PP administration raised the minimum wage more than once and over 130 wage negotiations were settled .

“The PNM continues to manipulate the country’s workers to satisfy its own selfish and political agenda; their industrial labour practices show the utter contempt that this Government has for the working class despite their mantra that they are a caring party,” he said .