Crippling strike

KAY-MARIE FLETCH­ER

Se­nior Re­porter

kay-marie.fletch­[email protected]

Com­muters trav­el­ling along the East-West cor­ri­dor and from Cen­tral and South Trinidad in­to and out of Port-of-Spain are ex­pect­ed to face an­oth­er day of dis­rup­tion to­day, as Route Two and Three maxi taxi op­er­a­tors plan to con­tin­ue their three-day strike de­spite talks with Trans­port and Civ­il Avi­a­tion Min­is­ter Eli Za­k­our yes­ter­day.

How­ev­er, maxi taxi op­er­a­tors on oth­er routes are ex­pect­ed to re­turn to the na­tion’s roads to­day, fol­low­ing over four hours of dis­cus­sions with Za­k­our and oth­er min­istry of­fi­cials.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia via tele­phone last night, Route Two Maxi Taxi As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent Bren­ton Knights said mem­bers over­whelm­ing­ly re­ject­ed a pro­pos­al to re­turn to work.

“The Route Two Maxi Taxi As­so­ci­a­tion will con­tin­ue to rest and re­flect. We are go­ing to hold to that po­si­tion un­til we get a res­o­lu­tion … The mem­ber­ship to­tal­ly re­ject­ed that (re­turn­ing to work), so we will as­sess it to­mor­row (Tues­day), and most like­ly, if the war has to in­ten­si­fy, so be it. The or­gan­i­sa­tion will sup­port any de­ci­sion of its mem­ber­ship … The min­is­ter’s po­si­tion was he is not go­ing to give any­thing in writ­ing and no­body is go­ing to force his hand to give any­thing in writ­ing and no com­mit­ment,” Knights said.

The Route Two as­so­ci­a­tion has ap­prox­i­mate­ly 2,000 to 2,500 maxi taxi op­er­a­tors iden­ti­fied by their red band max­is.

Im­me­di­ate­ly fol­low­ing the lengthy meet­ing at the Trans­port Min­istry’s head­quar­ters on Lon­don Street, Port-of-Spain, Knights said the dis­cus­sions un­for­tu­nate­ly car­ried po­lit­i­cal un­der­tones.

“The meet­ing had a lot of un­der­tones of pol­i­tics and that’s not a good thing for a meet­ing like this, when you’re at this stage. Pol­i­tics should nev­er ever be any part of the in­gre­di­ents in a meet­ing like this. We didn’t come with pol­i­tics,” he said.

“It had a heavy, heavy pres­ence of pol­i­tics, which is a lit­tle un­for­tu­nate. But, we un­der­stand that the min­is­ter and most min­is­ters are crea­tures of pol­i­tics… But, in this junc­tion here, where there is a se­ri­ous sit­u­a­tion in terms of trans­porta­tion and the pub­lic in­ter­est, pol­i­tics must not be the main in­gre­di­ent or such a heavy pres­ence of it.”

Knights stressed that there were many dis­par­i­ties be­tween what the min­istry be­lieves is tak­ing place and what’s ac­tu­al­ly hap­pen­ing on the ground.

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, As­so­ci­a­tion of Maxi Taxi Trinidad and To­ba­go sec­re­tary Vick­ash Kisoon­dath said Route Three maxi taxi op­er­a­tors were left di­vid­ed and as such, some dri­vers will re­turn to work while oth­ers will con­tin­ue to strike, in­clud­ing him­self.

Kisoon­dath said, “We have mixed re­ac­tions. We will have some op­er­a­tors to­mor­row (to­day). It’s 50/50. As we speak, please note the rea­son be­ing: we are com­pas­sion­ate to­wards our pas­sen­gers and the chil­dren who missed school.”

Route Three dri­vers op­er­ate green band max­is along routes be­tween Ch­agua­nas and San Fer­nan­do, Ch­agua­nas and Port-of-Spain, Curepe and Ch­agua­nas and Ari­ma and Tal­paro.

Route three has ap­prox­i­mate­ly 2,000 to 2,500 maxi taxi op­er­a­tors.

Mean­while, Route One Maxi Taxi As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent Eon He­witt took the de­ci­sion to re­turn to work to­day.

Route One dri­vers op­er­ate yel­low band max­is along routes in­clud­ing Diego Mar­tin, Pe­tit Val­ley, Care­nage, Ch­aguara­mas, St James and Mar­aval.

Im­me­di­ate­ly af­ter a de­ci­sion was made late last evening, He­witt told Guardian Me­dia that maxi taxi op­er­a­tors de­cid­ed to end their strike ac­tion.

He­witt said, “We are go­ing back to work. They will see us to­mor­row.”

Guardian Me­dia was in­formed that the two main rea­sons for their re­turn were to min­imise the dis­rup­tion and dis­com­fort caused to com­muters and some op­er­a­tors fac­ing chal­lenges as a re­sult of the strike.

Hours ear­li­er, im­me­di­ate­ly af­ter the meet­ing at the min­istry end­ed, He­witt stressed that the is­sue was not with any­one else ex­cept the min­is­ter.

He­witt said, “We want­ed to make it clear our fight was nev­er with the Gov­ern­ment. It’s the gen­tle­man (Za­k­our). I went in­side there and I left there and I am sure now in my mind that I was cor­rect. What I have been say­ing all the time, his name is Eli.

“He came for us man. He sat down there and know what he want­ed… He knew it would have been a long meet­ing and he would have talk, talk, talk, talk … For the last two days, any­where I go, the first thing I said, we apol­o­gise for this. It should have nev­er reached there. You see, when we made that de­ci­sion Thurs­day and it came on be­tween Thurs­day and to­day (yes­ter­day), peo­ple had a lot of things to put to­geth­er and come and throw it in your face.

Asked how much in­come op­er­a­tors lost from strik­ing yes­ter­day, He­witt replied, “A loss for a good cause? You can’t lose.”

How­ev­er, while some op­er­a­tors are re­turn­ing to work, they stressed that many is­sues re­main un­re­solved and dis­cus­sions among as­so­ci­a­tions will con­tin­ue as they re­group and as­sess their next move.

These is­sues in­clude in­creas­ing the high­way speed lim­it for maxi taxis from 65 km/h to 80 kn/h and the trans­fer­ral of PBR pass­es and in­ter­ci­ty pass­es. They said Za­k­our asked for time to work on their con­cerns.

How­ev­er, the op­er­a­tors said when they raised oth­er con­cerns, in­clud­ing ad­dress­ing es­ca­lat­ing crime af­fect­ing op­er­a­tors and pas­sen­gers and a crack­down on il­le­gal PH taxi op­er­a­tions, they were redi­rect­ed to the Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­istry.

When they raised con­cerns about up­grades and im­prove­ment of maxi taxi hubs and ter­mi­nals, they were told that was un­der the re­mit of Works and In­fra­struc­ture Min­is­ter Jear­lean John.

And when they raised the cre­ation of a sys­tem to al­low op­er­a­tors to make NIS con­tri­bu­tions, they were told that de­ci­sion lies with­in the Min­istry of Fi­nance.

The maxi taxi op­er­a­tors said Za­k­our asked for time to work on their con­cerns and as such, they had no choice but to give him that time.

How­ev­er, they said they will not drop their con­cerns and will be hold­ing him ac­count­able if noth­ing changes over time.

De­spite over four hours of dis­cus­sions, op­er­a­tors said they were hap­py they got to air their con­cerns but still left the meet­ing per­plexed and with­out the com­mit­ments they had hoped to se­cure.

When Guardian Me­dia reached out to the heads of the Route Four and Route Five as­so­ci­a­tion, Sham Mo­hammed and Brent Mon­roe, they con­firmed that their maxi taxi op­er­a­tors will al­so be re­turn­ing to work to­day.

Mo­hammed heads the black band maxi taxi op­er­a­tors, which in­clude the south-east routes such as San Fer­nan­do, Princes Town, Rio Claro, Moru­ga, Ma­yaro and Guayagua­yare.

Mon­roe’s mem­bers op­er­ate brown band max­is along the San Fer­nan­do, Point Fortin, Fyz­abad, La Ro­maine and Siparia routes.

Guardian Me­dia was al­so in­formed that some op­er­a­tors are cur­rent­ly seek­ing an­oth­er meet­ing with Works and In­fra­struc­ture Min­is­ter Jear­lean John. They are ex­pect­ed to get a re­sponse by 11 am to­day.

Guardian Me­dia made sev­er­al at­tempts to con­tact Za­k­our via tele­phone and What­sApp but re­ceived no re­sponse up to press time.