With Christmas in full swing, members of the public can be vastly affected as workers of TTPost are threatening industrial action.
At a press conference by the Postal Workers Union of T&T at the Eastern Main Road, El Dorado, yesterday, the union’s president, David Forbes, said workers were fed up and frustrated by the apparent lack of interest from members of management to ensure workers not only had the tools for their trade but ensure proper promotional systems were in place.
Forbes is also calling for an audit into the operations of the company.
“If the powers that be are not listening to what the workers are saying then I cannot guarantee any peace in terms of the industrial climate,” Forbes added as he described the situation as reaching “crisis proportions.”
To make matters worse, he said TTPost was without a state board since Government had changed. However, he said, that was no excuse by management to stop performing its duties.
“What we are seeing and experiencing is very much atrocious because the workers themselves do not have the ability to perform their duties in the absence of being promoted and in the absence of not having the tools to perform the job.
“Our view is that we do not need a board in place to continue the operations of TTPost,” Forbes added. He said having written to line Minister of Public Utilities Ancil Antoine, under whose purview TTPost fell, requesting discussions had yielded no results.
In the absence of a board, Forbes said, Antoine could intervene.
“We wrote to the minister requesting a meeting indicating our willingness to discuss all these issues but we did not even get a letter of acknowledgement,” he added. He said workers were now “crying out” for some sort of intervention to take place, especially given the fact that a number of positions have remained vacant.
“The workers are very much burnt out as some of them are not allowed to go on vacation and due to the skeletal work force of TTPost today,” Forbes added.
On the issue of negotiations, workers had settled at 14 per cent but were yet to received any retroactive. Forbes also claimed that a particular manager was victimising workers despite repeated complaints.
“These workers call or write the union on a daily basis with regards to how this manager is behaving,” Forbes added.
Holes in bags
Workers have also been forced to sew mail bags with gaping holes, Forbes said. He said an order was made since last year for new bags but only half were delivered recently.
He added: “Workers have to sew bags. This situation is unacceptable because mails could be lost. This is very much atrocious, especially when we are pushing for developed world status and we are still in this mode where we have to beg employers to supply us with the necessary tools.”
He said even umbrellas are not supplied on a timely basis.
Nothing I can do—Antoine
But when contacted yesterday, Antoine said nothing could be done unless a board was put into effect. He said he could not say when that would happen.