Black Immigrant Daily News

Dimanche 9 Octobre 2022 – 14h32

Certains ont pu ressentir ce tremblement de terre de magnitude 3,8. Il était situé à 18 km au sud?est de

Sainte?Anne.

Sur le même sujet

  Avant / après : les dégâts …

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TTUTA president Antonia De Freitas. –

TRADE union leaders have denounced as “dictatorial” any move to refer wage negotiations to the Industrial Court’s special tribunal.

On Friday, three of the four unions referred to the tribunal said they were not told anything about the referral.

In a telephone interview on Friday, president of the Prison Officers Association (POA) Ceron Richards said the referral was undermining the entire wage negotiations process.

He said the first he heard of it was when it was announced by the Finance Minister Colm Imbert during the reading of the 2023 budget.

Imbert said four unions had negotiations with the Chief Personnel Officer (CPO) sent to the special tribunal as discussions could go no further. Imbert said the government’s four per cent offer for two negotiating periods remains on the table and at any time any one of the unions can accept the offer, ending the tribunal.

The four per cent offer covers the negotiating period from 2014 to 2019

The unions sent to the tribunal are the POA, the Trinidad and Tobago Unified Teachers Association (TTUTA, the Police Social and Welfare Association and the TT Fire Service Association.

“The first time we heard of this being sent to the tribunal was in the media. The union has not received any documentation from the CPO or the Industrial Court informing us that negotiations had broken down to the point that it needed to be sent to a tribunal.”

TTUTA’s president Antonia Tehka-DeFreitas said the union was also in the dark on the referral.

“TTUTA has not received any documents from the Industrial Court. Until then the pronouncement in the public domain does not qualify as an official notification.”

She said she could comment until TTUTA was given official notice.

Richards said the POA and the CPO met three times but they were yet to discuss the union’s requests.

“I am very concerned about the status of these negotiations. From the beginning of these negotiations, it was severely undermined. What is this special tribunal? There is no option of appealing their decisions.

“This is a strict political situation. I have never experienced this before. This is unique.”

Imbert said Amalgamated Workers Union and the Defence Force had accepted the four per cent offer.

However, Richards said the Defence Force signing was peculiar. He said the unit usually signs after other protective services.

Fire Service Association president Leo Ramkissoon also said the surprise referral to the tribunal was a “unilateral and draconian attempt to suppress and oppress salaries of the protective services.”

He said they too only had three in-person meetings with the CPO which he described as a “façade aimed at attempting to fool the public into believing that reasonable consideration was being given.”

“What we saw was an unprecedented and dictatorial approach that was woefully insufficient, contravening long standing negotiation practices.”

Vice-president of the Police Social Welfare Association, ASP Ishmael Pitt, said the referral to the tribunal was disheartening as the association believed the government understood the role police played, especially in the past two years.

“Right now, it is a matter of regrouping because this process is binding. We trust that the government, in its quiet moment, considers the last two years when police officers went above and beyond the call of duty.

“We know things are not what they used to be economically, but police officers deserve a decent standard of living.”

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PARAMARIBO — Bij afzonderlijke steek- en kappartijen tussen woensdag en zaterdag is één persoon overleden en moesten twee slachtoffers medisch

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Even as some communities are complaining about the irregular supply of pipe-borne water, the Antigua Public Utilities Authority appears not to care that gallons are being wasted, residents of Carlisle are saying.

They tell REAL News that a leak that began in front of a beauty salon has gradually worsened, and the water has been running across the recently repaved Sir George Walter Highway since Wednesday or Thursday.

Persons travelling to and from the V.C. Bird International Airport and the Coolidge community along that road have also made the observation.’’

A resident of Powells says the running water is a concern, not only for the integrity of the roadway, but because he is afraid of the leak affecting the airport compound, in the area where open trenches are running parallel to the highway.

That stretch of the road has long been treacherous for motorists, he adds, since water has traditionally pooled in the bend.  Many accidents have occurred there, with vehicles having ended up breaching the airport’s fence.

Accordingly, “with this smooth road and the speed at which some people drive, this water is creating dangerous conditions,” the senior man says.  “The water department needs to address this thing right now.”

A Carlisle resident is also chiding the Authority.  “I remember hearing one of the APUA Managers say that we, the citizens, are not reporting the leaks when we see them,” she tells our News Room.  “Now we are doing it, it still does not make a difference,” she says.

The woman claims the hotline worker who took her call assured her that the Authority had been notified already, and yet, she says, she has seen no work crew come to address it.

Another leak – this one on the main road outside the Paynter Paradise housing development – has been running for nearly two weeks now, according to an area resident.

“You mean to tell me – with water so scarce – it can take this long for them to fix it?  You mean that nobody tarl from APUA drive on this road and see the water getting away?” the angry woman asks.

Meanwhile, another person who has some knowledge of such operations says that “APUA needs a proper dispatch system to receive trouble calls; log them into the maintenance system immediately; and issue them out as Corrective Maintenance Work Orders – categorized as Emergency, Urgent and Routine.”

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