After years of their cries falling on deaf ears, Port of Spain City Corporation workers are now calling for a meeting with Minister of Rural Development and Local Government, Khadijah Ameen.
The workers say, there are many questions to be answered with respect to the dealings of both the management and the representative union, and they're hoping the minister will be able to get the answers. Rynessa Cutting reports.
00:00Vines grew along the top of this garbage truck.
00:04One of many Port of Spain City Corporation vehicles left to rot
00:08on the compound of the Transport and Cleansing Department.
00:12Lack of service and repair city trucks.
00:15Because presently there are trucks that are down just for a filter.
00:22There are trucks that are down tractors.
00:26I can tell you this for certainty.
00:27If you turn your camera, there's a steamroller there.
00:30For the last four or five years, there's a spark up there.
00:33We recently attained a new steamroller.
00:36There are trucks that are down for as much as a battery.
00:39Recently, in Alfred Richards, the people of Alfred Richards
00:42blocked the streets with the garbage that wasn't collected.
00:45For as much as sometimes two weeks, garbage hasn't been picked up in my area.
00:49Workers say the issues began in 2023, when a new manager took over.
00:55Maintenance on the vehicles, I have records of that in our book.
00:58Because I want to keep the diary of which truck is due for service, when, what, not everything about the vehicle, I know.
01:05Right?
01:05And I have a diary to prove that my vehicles and them are not being serviced.
01:09And it's going on a hole here and something.
01:12Right?
01:12In the meantime, garbage is piling up across the Port of Spain divisions and even on the corporation's work site.
01:25As workers say, with only one or sometimes two trucks functioning, the trucks often fail to make the cut-off time to dump off at the landfill.
01:33You don't want that truck parking up on the compound with rubbish in it.
01:40But you'd rather the rubbish be dumped on the compound that you don't want the same truck to park up in.
01:46Right?
01:47So you'd rather dump the rubbish there.
01:49You wash the truck and put it there and you sell it out the next day.
01:51Then now when the dump becomes available, they'll take one of the open tray loaders, the loaders, and they will take them and carry it to the dump.
02:03They say the manager also took the decision to discontinue payment of overtime, even when workers work on a weekend.
02:12And they add, the mayor is aware of their concerns.
02:15The mayor came, and when he came, he came with a document saying how much money local government had given to the corporation to pay the overtime to run the normal servicing and whatnot and everything and all the vehicles and to pay people.
02:31And from there on till now, we didn't see that be a fruit.
02:35The only thing we see, lights and things went up where it was costly and we don't know who found that and everything just crashed.
02:41The whole vote for transport and cleansing here, gone.
02:43What year was that?
02:46Like this year, yeah, man.
02:47The workers say the Amalgamated Workers' Union has failed to assist them with the challenges faced.
02:53And they're even suggesting that the union president is implicated in the matter.
02:58As such, they're escalating their petition.
03:01What we are saying is that if they use that same money that is afforded the private contractors and they give us the money,
03:08or rather not give us the money, but use the money to facilitate the parts and other things to get the job going, then we will do our job.
03:16We would like the local government minister, Mrs. Khadija Amin.
03:21And I know that she is probably fully aware of all that's taken place, but we would like her to come down here,
03:27down at our area in transport and cleansing so we could get, so the workers on the ground floor could get a meeting with her
03:33and let her know from the ground floor what's taken place, because we feel that if she interacts with the management,
03:39she will not know the facts and the truth of what is taken place.
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