Annisette: 600 could lose jobs at Port

From left ,Seamen and Waterfront Workers Trade Union President Michael Annisette,Public Services Association  (PSA) President Watson Duke and Attorney Nyree Alfonso at a joint press conference at PSA head office on Abercromby Street in Port of Spain.  PHOTO SUREASH CHOLAI
From left ,Seamen and Waterfront Workers Trade Union President Michael Annisette,Public Services Association (PSA) President Watson Duke and Attorney Nyree Alfonso at a joint press conference at PSA head office on Abercromby Street in Port of Spain. PHOTO SUREASH CHOLAI

DOCKWORKERS leader Michael Annisette yesterday accused the Government of not acting to effect an MOU to raise wages by 12 per cent and to retire 40 per cent of the workforce at the Port of Port of Spain (POS).

With 1,500 staff at that Port, by Annisette's figures, the cuts could retire 600 people.

At a news briefing at the Public Services Association office in POS, the Seamen and Waterfront Workers Trade Union (SWWTU) said his union and the Port Authority had signed an MOU three years ago to modernise operations but so far the Government had done nothing on it. Annisette said his union had proposed a 40 per cent wage force cut, based on age-profiles and with those severed being given a golden handshake and good pension benefits.

“The union made that proposal to save the Port. If you leave it to fester, everybody will go home. Which is better?”

The cuts would be across the board, he said.

Saying the port is dying and alleging efforts to build a new port at La Brea, he asked if the Government was now trying to marginalise the SWWTU. His union wants to work with the Government but their efforts had fallen on deaf ears, he alleged. Annisette said two top managers at the Port had been fired as scapegoats, but Works and Transport Minister Rohan Sinanan had not been.

He scoffed at Government claims of having bought the Galleons Passage to work out of Toco, when that town had no port.

Annisette alleged “a creeping dictatorship” in the country but vowed to speak out undeterred.

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