Lifeguards at the nation’s beaches are threatening to withhold their services unless their demands are met. At a press conference at Maracas beach yesterday, shop steward for the Las Cuevas National Union of Government and Federated Workers (NUGFW) Gideon Valdez, renewed calls for a meeting with the Minister of National Security, Edmund Dillon.
When the PNM came into power the lifeguards were moved from the Tourism Ministry to National Security. Valdez said the public needed to know that there was not enough lifeguards.
“We can’t even get a vacation because they have nobody to replace you. It means that don’t have enough workers. On a weekend the staff is cut into half.
“There are 24 lifeguards but there are 12 who are supposed to be working. In reality it is ten because one of the lifeguards is an instructor and the other is a patrol captain,” he added. He said the lifeguards were just being rotated and not being given time to recuperate.
“It is the same lifeguards coming to work. When they off they are getting call out. The same ones over and over. You get drain out,” he noted. He said approximately 60 people in T&T were trained to be lifeguards and they were not being used.
“There are people already trained and to become a lifeguard you have to train for two years as an OJT before you become a full lifeguard.”
Valdez said the majority of the lifeguards would be leaving the work in the next two years because they would be at retirement age.
“You have 50-year-old lifeguards making rescue on the beaches. That is the lifeguards they want to make rescue on the beach? That could never be. Some are 48-years-olds,” he added. He said it was urgent that they met with National Security than the supervisors on staff.
“We want somebody to change the system. We are demanding a meeting or we will take another step and shut down. We must get a hearing,” he said.
Valdez said the lifeguards’ other issue was the shortage of new uniforms. He said the last ones were given to them three years ago.
“We got uniforms and we are still wearing the uniforms that have the Ministry of Tourism on it. Some of the clothes are torn up after all these years of wash-and-wear,” he said. He said there also was a shortage of First Aid supplies.
Valdez said the toilets have been leaking for months and they have to use concrete brick to stand on when they went to them. Attempts yesterday to contact Dillon or get a response from that ministry’s Communication Department proved futile.