4,000 retrenched since Sept

According to Cabrera, between 1985 and 1993, 6,698 workers were retrenched in the public and private sectors. He said that in 1992, the Minister of Labour reported to the International Labour Organisation (ILO) that 10,000 retrenchments were reported between 1986 and 1990.

He added that rising unemployment benefitted no one and that large scale dismissals lead to an increase in the numbers of people who participate in the “informal economy,” saying there were increasing numbers of vendors as well as people who go into criminal activity.

He said that from September 2016 to now, about 4,000 workers had been retrenched. However, he said he was sure that the figure was higher because that number was based on reports to the ministry by employers and they are not required to report when they retrench fewer than five workers.

He said trickles of workers are being retrenched every day. “Every Monday morning some new employer is saying they are restructuring and once they say that they are restructuring, we know what coming down after.” Cabrera gave the figures at a news conference at the union’s Barataria headquarters at which he accused a little known UK oil services company ASCO based at New Street in Port of spain of committing several industrial relations offences when it retrenched an entire bargaining unit of 16 people without giving formal notice to the Ministry of Labour and without consulting with the union.

Cabrera said in January, the union was granted approval as the recognised majority union for a bargaining unit comprising monthly- rated workers at the company. He said the union received its recognition certificate on January 11, 2016. The company later said it lost its contract with bp and retrenched all workers in the bargaining unit.

He said the workers told the union that they had been told that if they behaved themselves and did not join the union, the company would place them in jobs with another company which had got the bp contract.

He said something was strange about that because while the bargaining unit for which the union had been recognised had been retrenched, another bargaining unit was continuing to work and the company was continuing its operations. He said that last November the union submitted proposals to the company for negotiations for an industrial agreement and the company submitted its counter-proposals in March this year. Cabrera said that in April the union had to report to the Ministry of Labour that there was a trade dispute between the parties. According to Cabrera, after several concilliation meetings at the Ministry of Labour, the ministry prepared an agreement for both parties to sign but on the day that they were supposed to sign the agreement the company representative attended the meeting and said it was not prepared to sign the agreement and would not continue the negotiations with the union.

Cabrera said this was gross disrespect and unethical. He said the union is now awaiting a statement from the Ministry of Labour certifying that an unresolved dispute exists and a referral to take the matter to the Industrial Court.

A spokesmn for ASCO said “No comment”, to the union’s charges.