NATUC urges government to absorb CEPEP workers

The Na­tion­al Trade Union Cen­tre (NATUC) is call­ing on the gov­ern­ment to im­me­di­ate­ly ab­sorb ter­mi­nat­ed CEPEP work­ers in­to the ex­ist­ing con­trac­tu­al frame­work, fol­low­ing wide­spread fear and un­cer­tain­ty among af­fect­ed work­ers.

The ap­peal fol­lows the UNC ad­min­is­tra­tion’s re­cent de­ci­sion to end sev­er­al CEPEP con­tracts. While NATUC ac­knowl­edged gov­ern­ment con­cerns about poor gov­er­nance in the pro­gramme un­der the for­mer PNM ad­min­is­tra­tion, the union said work­ers should not be pun­ished for the al­leged mis­con­duct of po­lit­i­cal­ly con­nect­ed con­trac­tors.

“These work­ers have long toiled un­der dif­fi­cult con­di­tions, of­ten with lit­tle job se­cu­ri­ty, and it is whol­ly un­just for them to be col­lat­er­al dam­age,” NATUC said in a me­dia re­lease on Mon­day.

The union said it sup­ports a more trans­par­ent and skill-build­ing ver­sion of CEPEP but urged the gov­ern­ment to act with ur­gency and com­pas­sion, en­sur­ing no work­er is left be­hind.

It al­so drew at­ten­tion to what it called past in­jus­tices that re­main un­ad­dressed, in­clud­ing the 2017 dis­missal of Port Au­thor­i­ty CEO Char­maine Lewis and the Row­ley-led gov­ern­ment’s re­fusal to ho­n­our a 12% col­lec­tive agree­ment.

“Our mes­sage to the CEPEP work­ers to­day is clear: you are not alone. We hear you, we sup­port you, and we will con­tin­ue to ad­vo­cate for your fair treat­ment, dig­ni­ty, and se­cu­ri­ty,” NATUC said.