President of the Public Services Association (PSA) Watson Duke yesterday threatened to take legal action against the Chaguaramas Development Authority (CDA) following the sudden dismissal of six permanent workers from the State-owned company.
Five of the six workers have been identified as Marcus Hudson, Rakesh Ramnath, Cherisse Solomon, Stacy Valdez and Christopher Mc Lean.
The dismissal came six weeks after Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley and several union bodies agreed to a moratorium on State sector retrenchments until December 2017.
The CDA has cited financial challenges for the retrenchment, stating that its board, chaired by Gupte Lutchmedial, felt it was no longer feasible to retain the top positions of assistant manager of IT, project manager, public relations specialist, document specialist and quality specialist.
The workers, who had between three to five years of service with the CDA, were told that their jobs had become redundant. Collectively the workers’ salaries were over $100,000 monthly.
While the proposed date of retrenchment by CDA was listed as November 30, the employees’ last day of work was October 20. The workers were not informed before hand of their terminations, which left them in shock and tears.
In June, CDA retrenched four workers, bringing the total figure so far to ten in the last four months.
“As a chairman and board they lacked the respect for agreements made between the unions and the Government. They have defied that. That agreement still stands and we expect the Government will stand up and tell the CDA to reinstate these workers, Duke said yesterday.
The PSA, Duke said, held a meeting with CDA about two weeks ago and agreed to withdraw all efforts to retrench its workers which was minuted.
“While we met and agreed on good faith tthe CDA would have acted in bad faith once our backs were turned. We are not going to talk, but act. You can expect legal action will follow. We are concerned with the manner in which CDA has been sending workers home,” Duke said.
Duke said he was most upset by CDA’s callous move.
Recently, CDA in a 2017 draft report had estimated its debts at $118 million.
Calls to Lutchmedial’s cellphone went unanswered yesterday and he did not respond to a text message.