By LEISELLE MARAJ and CLINT CHAN TACK Friday, October 2 2009

TRADE union officials last night indicated they are going full speed ahead with plans to stage a mass protest today against TSTT and PTSC, despite Government’s move to have these two State entities reconsider moves to have the Industrial Court de-certify trade unions representing TSTT and PTSC workers.

TSTT filed an Industrial Relations Offence (IRO) against the Communication Workers Union (CWU) based on the union’s role in a fracas at TSTT House, Edward Street, Port-of-Spain on July 7. This event was used as the basis by TSTT to file for the union to be de-certified.

The PTSC’s IRO was filed against the Transport and Industrial Workers Union (TIWU) due to a disruption in bus services from City Gate, Port-of-Spain, stemming from a bus strike on September 14, which is also the reason used for their argument to de-certify that union.

TSTT also suspended most of their employees involved in the fracas while 13 bus drivers were dismissed by PTSC as a result of their actions during the bus strike.

At a post Cabinet press conference yesterday, Minister in the Finance Ministry Mariano Browne, said Cabinet decided to advise the relevant line ministers to meet with TSTT and PTSC managers as soon as possible to get them to reconsider their moves to de-certify the unions.

“We do not support irresponsible or confrontational behaviour on the part of the unions and any behaviour which does not fall within the ambit of the Industrial Relations Act. We are also surprised to note the moves by statutory corporations, state enterprises, in this case PTSC and TSTT and the move to decertify the two recognised bargaining units,” Browne said adding, “We want to say that we support responsible behaviour and we do support a dialogue process which allows us to keep in touch and allowing the business of developing our economy to move forward.”

TSTT manager (Media Relations and Corporate Communications) Graeme Suite said yesterday that since no formal notice has arrived from their line minister — Public Utilities Minister Mustapha Abdul-Hamid — the company could not issue a statement on the issue.

CWU President, Joseph Remy, confirmed that unions will be mobilising members to picket City Gate and the Industrial Court in support of TIWU and CWU. The CWU is expected in court today for a pre-trial hearing into the matter filed by TSTT. “We have a matter to respond to before the court but we hope good sense prevails on both the side of Government and TSTT. We note that the instruction was issued to the line minister to speak to management so we await to see what happens with that and what happens in court,” Remy said.

TIWU President, Roland Sutherland said the union was not quite concerned with the company’s moves to decertify it since they were convinced the corporation’s accusations would not stand up in court.

He said however, “The Government has taken a step in the right direction with state enterprises who feel they are their own authorities. Whoever they are consulting, they should consider whether they are being advised properly.”

Sutherland expressed hope that PTSC management would let the industrial relations climate return to a level of sanity by listening to what line Minister, Works and Transport Minister Colm Imbert, has to say. He said however that the actions of the two state enterprises brought back unity to the trade union movement after relations became strained earlier this year when trade unions were accused of poaching members from other representative bodies. Calls to PTSC management remained unanswered.