... final payment date a secret

Yesterday, the final scheduled day for Caroni daily-paid workers to accept their Voluntary Separation of Employment Packages (VSEP), saw one senior Caroni official pleading with the media not to make the eventual date of payment public.

“This can make them potential  kidnap victims,” he said. “We cannot do that to our people.” He further added that such precautions were in  the best interest of the workers and that  making  the payments public knowledge given the present  spate  of kidnappings in the country would be “irresponsible  behaviour.” The final working day  for daily-paid workers is August 15, 2003. Section Offices were opened from 7am to 2pm yesterday to serve the last daily-paid workers accepting the offer. Up to yesterday, approximately 8,000  to  9,000  daily-paid workers had accepted their VSEP. “It was a very good response from the daily-paid workers,” the Caroni official said. “Right through the week since Tuesday we received a steady, consistent flow of near 2,000 workers per day.” 

Since last Tuesday, the VSEP  Letters of Offer were available at  some 18-20  Section Offices. The official said these offices were strategically located to “facilitate all  the employees.” He added that staff were made available to assist the workers with completing the forms  and to deal with their queries  to have “a uniformed informative response.” He called this a “joint union management approach.” Checks by Newsday yesterday at two Section Offices Cedar Hill, Princes Town/Exchange and Petit Morne/Bronte indicated that there were 19 - 25 workers showing up to accept the offer yesterday. The Caroni official said the “real rush” was for the first two days the offers were being presented at the Section Offices (Tuesday 21 and Wednesday 22.) Of the 376 workers listed at Cedar Hill, one employee said only six individuals did not show up  and of these some were deceased, others out of the country. At the Petit Morne and Bronte offices, employees indicated that by lunchtime yesterday, of the 601  workers listed, around 597 had accepted their offer.