TSTT sends home 500 workers

TSTT today started retrenching workers, with over 500 senior and junior staff getting letters informing them that they have become redundant, as the company "transforms to survive."
The company said in a statement that from today, "TSTT executed on a critical phase in its organisational transformation.

This phase involves 503 junior and senior staff employees receiving retrenchment notices along with payment in lieu of the 45 days’ notice. The next phase will involve the rationalisation of non-unionised employees, including the executive level."

Among the workers getting retrenchment letters is Clyde Elder, head of the company's majority labour union, the Communications Workers' Union.

Justifying the decision, TSTT’s CEO Dr Ronald Walcott said in the release that the company recorded an operating loss of $32.5 million in the previous financial year, "and the contributing factors that led to that performance continued in the six months of the current financial year to September 2018," when the company recorded a loss of $478.8 million.
TSTT said in the release that it "has been plagued with a perennial problem of high employee costs."

It explained, "Contrary to the assertions being bandied about in the public domain, of the $768 million annual wage bill, emoluments to junior and senior staff comprise 82.3 per cent. The company is also carrying a debt burden of $1.8 billion of which 40 per cent (or about $700 million) pertains to the settlement of back pay to junior and senior staff.

In addition, TSTT’s employee cost is greater than 30 per cent of its revenue; the industry benchmark being 15 per cent. The revenue per employee is US$177,000 compared to the industry benchmark of US$400,000."