Week to 'rest and reflect'

PRESIDENT of the San Fernando Businesses Association (SBA) Daphne Bartlett says the trade union movement's call for a day of 'rest and reflection' to show government all is not well, is simply not enough. She is calling for an entire week of no work.

But both the TT Chamber and the Employers Consultative Association (ECA) are warning that any prolonged shutdown of commerce can have disastrous economic consequences.

At a Labour Day rally on Tuesday, president of the Joint Trade Union Movement (JTUM) Ancel Roget gave government a "failing" grade in terms of management of the country's affairs and called for September 7 to be a day of no work to send government a message. Bartlett was unimpressed.

“Shutting down the country for one day doesn't do much, Roget has to do better than that. We need a week of total shutdown. One day will not bring any results," she said during a telephone interview yesterday.

Citing crime as the main concern in the country, Bartlett said she has been calling for joint police army patrols for San Fernando for years, but to no avail. She said it is clear this government has a problem with implementation since nothing appears to be working in the country.

Her call for a week of no work comes on the heel of controversial comments by another businessperson who complained about holidays affecting business productivity. Gerald Aboud publicly apologised for his social media posts in which he described Indian Arrival Day and Corpus Christi as “two stupid holidays” the country may not need.

For its part, the TT Chamber says staying away from work is no solution to the economic challenges facing the country. Chamber CEO Gabriel Faria said he was disappointed with these calls as the problems facing TT will not be solved by people staying away from work.

He said businesses stand to suffer heavy losses given the current economic climate. "Discussion like this creates more tension because people who get impacted ultimately are the shareholders who have invested their money," Faria said.

Faria, who is a member of the National Tripartite Council (NTC) called on the labour movement to work together to find practical solutions to the challenges confronting the country. He said the call to stay away from work reeks of Roget's “take your rig and go” comment, which resulted in TT losing out on the $m contract to construct the Angelin drilling platform. Such trade union rhetoric he said, can send the wrong message to potential investors.

Ronald Ramlogan of the ECA said the harsh reality of economic life today is that TT cannot support a large-scale work stoppage. He reminded workers that employers are under no legal obligation to pay them when they absent themselves without proper authorisation.