NUFGW: Ministers trying to destroy union

TWO GOVERNMENT Ministers are using the Community Environmental Protection and Preservation Programme (CEPEP) and the Unemployment Relief Programme (URP) to destroy the National Union of Government and Federated Workers Trade Union (NUGFW). 

This was the allegation leveled yesterday by NUGFW president Robert Giuseppi against Local Government Minister Jarrette Narine and Works Minister Franklin Khan. Giuseppi told a news conference the NUGFW had written the Chief Personnel Officer about matters concerning CEPEP and URP. “I am surprised the media is not looking in terms of the industrial relations aspect of these types of parallel workforce. Why is the media not showing the public that these work situations as far as ILO (International Labour Organisation) conventions are concerned, these types of workforces are being exploited and we could consider these people as paid slaves. “It is an orchestrated effort by some Ministers to attack the NUGFW by created these workforces. Why are they are hiring a workforce that is outside, not legally, but they are operating outside the legal work structure?” he declared.

Giuseppi claimed that public praise heaped on CEPEP by Narine and Khan proves the union’s claims are true. The NUGFW president said Government was creating a system “worse than the colonial system” through the establishment of CEPEP and URP, noting that the latter had been rearranged over the years “to make it a corrupt type of employment practice”. Giuseppi called for CEPEP to be discontinued in its present form. He also warned that if Government destroyed the system for daily-paid workers in the country, multinational corporations could negotiate with Government to undertake work similar to what CEPEP is doing. Giuseppi said they could make this application under the World Trade Organisation’s newest arm, the General Agreement and Trading Services (GATS) and Government was “building ground for monkey to dance”.