MSJ challenges Prestige Holdings: Do better

POLITICAL leader of the Movement for Social Justice (MSJ) David Abdulah is calling on Prestige Holdings Ltd to "do better" for its employees. His comments were made after news broke that workers at KFC, one of the many fast-food franchises owned by the company, will no longer receive a weekly stipend.

Abdulah was speaking at a virtual press conference on Sunday morning.

On Saturday, media reported that since government’s decision to close all restaurants on April 30, KFC workers had been receiving a $150 weekly stipend.

But, it said, this will be discontinued.

In response to this, Abdulah reminded executives of the company: “It is not just the franchise that has bills to pay – it is the hundreds of workers employed by Prestige Holdings that have bills to pay, rent to pay.”

Directly addressing the company’s chairman Christian Mouttet, Abdulah said, “Why don’t you mortgage some of your property?”

The media report also said when the stipend cut was announced, workers were told the company “has bills to pay.”

Abdulah said, “We have had far too many people in the past six weeks dying…Hundreds and thousands of workers are out of a job and in many cases receiving no income whatsoever.”

He said leaders across the Government, Opposition and business community are “not setting the right example for the people of Trinidad and Tobago.”

To sum up those leaders’ response thus far to the covid19 pandemic, he said it is “not good enough.”

He said the solution cannot be to continue “locking down more and more (but) we need to create a balance.”