Keeping our beaches safe

Bathing at Trinidad and Tobago’s beaches during the long Easter weekend may not be safe as the nation’s lifeguards have threatened to withhold their services in an effort to pressure the Chief Personnel Officer (CPO) to meet their demands for a 60 percent wage increase. The two parties are expected to meet today. In the process, thousands of seabathers who normally go to the beaches at this time and who will as a consequence be placed at risk are being used to make their point by the lifeguards and their union, the National Union of Government and Federated Workers’ Trade Union (NUGFW). Should the industrial dispute not be settled today it will mean that the threat issued by Robert Guiseppi, President General of NUGFW: “If it is war the Ministry of Tourism wants, it is war they will get” may see beach lovers as the first casualties of this “war.”

Adding to the danger which the absence of the lifeguards could pose has been the warning by the Institute of Marine Affairs (IMA) of the likelihood of rip currents at pocket beaches on the North Coast and unsheltered beaches on the East and South coasts. The IMA has cautioned that most beaches in Tobago, save for those protected by coral reefs, are also susceptible to rip currents. It is a timely message by the IMA given the declaration of intent by the lifeguards, and it has pointed out also that the rip currents could easily pull unsuspecting bathers out to sea. Should this occur, then in the absence of any lifeguards, holidayers seabathing at beaches from Maracas to Mayaro, might be at considerable risk. The plan by the authorities to have volunteer lifeguards could reduce the risk posed by any withdrawal of enthusiasm by the lifeguards.

Nonetheless, the assigning of trained volunteer lifeguards to the more popular beaches, at which, incidentally, seabathing tends to be the most challenging, will in addition to helping to save lives of persons, who may be caught in below-the-surface currents, also helps to reduce an understandable sense of unease. The daily-paid lifeguards, who are required to work only two days a week, have emphasised the difficulty in having to subsist on two days’ wages weekly, while other public sector workers are employed on a five-day basis. This has led, they have argued, to financial hardship as well as domestic inconvenience.

As a result, some supplement their income by operating PH cars which is illegal while others have turned to gardening and fishing. No one can within reason question the importance of their work as lifeguards, and one must agree that they need better working arrangements. There is clear need for compromise in which the CPO seeks to deal with the special circumstances under which the lifeguards are expected to work and survive. Nonetheless, to place them in the per diem bracket which would call for an increase from $154 to $260 may trigger unwelcome repercussions in the public sector’s daily-paid worker section. 

A reasonable formula may be for the CPO to arrange for the lifeguards to be offered other part time employment to give them a living wage. The lifeguards are performing a crucial service which can assist in both the development of internal tourism and attracting more visitors to Trinidad and Tobago not to mention protecting us at our beaches.  Both parties should attempt to seek to appreciate the peculiar problems with which each is faced. Keeping bathing at the country’s beaches safe, along with encouraging a visitor perception of safe seabathing, should be the overriding factor.