Opposition Leader: No job is safe, PNM has betrayed TSTT workers
The announcement that 600 workers have been terminated from TSTT is the latest betrayal by this PNM government on the people of Trinidad and Tobago.
I had warned the country on Monday night that this would occur.
TSTT had approximately 1000 workers. Therefore, this means three-fifths of the workers at TSTT have been thrown on the breadline while the company has been effectively destroyed.
Only last November the Communications Workers Union raised alarm bells about the plans for mass retrenchment at TSTT. The Government deceived the country about its obvious intentions and dismissed the claims.
Keith Rowley has employed his ‘Petrotrin Playbook’ to commit this economic hit on TSTT.
Firstly, the Government blatantly lied to the workers and to the nation about its plans for the company. Now, after they have effectively gutted TSTT, they will begin to demonise the workers, blaming them for the PNM’s own massive failures. Also, there is no doubt that like Petrotrin, the PNM will sell off the remains of TSTT to their friends, family members and financiers
While 600 families now face the grim prospect of coping with unemployment during an economic crisis, this PNM government has yet to explain the decision by TSTT to borrow over one Billion dollars to purchase Massy Communications in 2018.
The now terminated workers of TSTT and all citizens deserve answers, especially as Massy Communications has failed to provide the slightest increase in profitability for TSTT in three years.
This disconnected Rowley administration is doing the opposite of what a responsible government should be doing in the pandemic – preserving livelihoods, creating jobs, and diversifying the economy. Keith Rowley however prefers to make taking luxurious golfing trips his one and only priority.
While Rowley continues to make empty speeches about “economic safe zones” his government is quickly putting all the citizens of Trinidad and Tobago in the same unemployment and poverty zone.
Kamla Persad-Bissessar, SC, MP
Leader of the Opposition
2nd February 2022