OPM: JTUM misleading on retrenchment

Government yesterday said claims of mass retrenchment by Joint Trade Union Movement (JTUM) leader Ancil Roget about mass retrenchement of public sector employees at this time, was misleading. Government also said the claim that the moratorium on public sector retrenchment for the rest of the year, which Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley and the labour movement agreed to on Wednesday, was not the result of labour's request to stave off any retrenchment.

In a statement, the Office of the Prime Minister said, "The Government is very disappointed that its efforts at engagement with labour intending to build trust and cooperation in the national interest can be so easily undermined by self-serving and misleading representation of the facts." The statement said labour had always contended that Government was engaging in mass layoffs, even though this was not true. The statement said Government has repeated its actions about keeping as many people in employment, even as the country's finances posed a serious challenge to this objective.