MTS loses primary schools contract

The Ministry of Education informed the National Maintenance Training and Security Company (MTS) that it would no longer be in charge of the maintenance and security of the Government primary schools in the country. In a press release the union representing the MTS workers, the Transport and Industrial Workers’ Union (TIWU), said, “the irony of the situation is that Government, who is the major shareholder of MTS by their behaviour, seems determined to destroy the stability of the company as scores of workers, many of them single parent mothers, will be without a job by the removal of the contracts.”

The TIWU referred to Government’s action as retrograde as MTS was created to maintain and secure government schools and buildings upon the advice of international consultants in the field of maintenance. Some of the firms which were offered the new contracts are Building Maintenance Services, Century 21, Super Industries Services and T&T Carpet. The TIWU holds the view that the contracts were awarded to these firms because they are not unionised and their manpower costs are suppressed.