Commuters who use the Public Transport Service Corporation (PTSC) were left stranded yesterday as the workers protested outside City Gate, Port-of-Spain.
Approximately 200 PTSC protesters walked along South Quay with placards and flags and chanted, “No money, no vote,” “We will overcome” and “We want the back pay.”
The city workers were supported by PTSC employees from across the island.
The workers protested because of lack of payment of back pay which was agreed and signed since May, for the period between 2012 to 2014, and several health and safety issues need to be addressed.
Inside the transit hub there were long lines of commuters waiting for transport to various destinations. Despite their protest, few trips were not affected.
One of the passengers, Beverly Rennie, said she came into Port-of-Spain with the bus.
“I going to a funeral but I came down from Maracas/St Joseph with the bus, but not with the same driver,” she said.
Vilma Daniel said she was disappointed because her family was going to use the bus to travel on a trip to San Fernando.
“The children hungry. Is over two hours we waiting here. We were going to travel south on the bus and eat there,” she said sharing out a box of fried chicken with members of her family.
“We were told they don’t know when they coming,” she said.
Lucy Edwards, who was travelling to Arima, said they were not approached by anyone to let them know what was going on.
“They could call and say something but what they going and say? Is over one hour we waiting,” she said, standing in line.
Ernest Joseph, a Transport Industrial Workers Union executive member, said the workers are fed up with the health and safety issues.
“That is brought on time and time again. We have a rundown fleet of buses and we are the only fleet in the Caribbean that has 27 different models of buses. It is a problem to maintain,” he said.
Ryan Ramdath, one of the representatives from South Trinidad said the meeting and protest was to address health and safety concerns.
He said these problems are plaguing Port-of-Spain, Arima, Sangre Grande and Chaguanas depots.
“The second problem is the back pay. They settled since February and signed in May,” he said.
In an interview at City Gate, PTSC manager Marketing and Communications, Carl Ramdeo admitted that the fleet needed to be upgraded.
“We need more buses in PTSC to make the fleet come up to 500 buses which would serve the public. We have a greater demand for every new route which is over subscribed and we need to increase the new CNG buses,” he said.
Ramdeo said the fleet is now at 380 and needs to be increased by at least 120 and service runs from 4 am to 9 pm.
He said some of the buses are ten years old and needed to be upgraded.
“They come in to do minor repairs, running or long term repairs,” he said.
Ramdeo said the fleet consists of 27 models of buses and some parts are now obsolete and it was a tremendous challenge.
He thanked the drivers for the work that they did during this time.
“Safety is a priority at PTSC and we will never compromise safety. There are concerns and management met with workers last week to alleviate the problem. PTSC is 50 years old and we need to upgrade the infrastructure,” he said.
Attempts to contact Transport Minister Stephen Cadiz proved futile.