TIWU denies industrial action behind PTSC bus delays

Shane Su­perville

Se­nior Re­porter

shane.su­[email protected]

The Trans­port and In­dus­tri­al Work­ers’ Union (TI­WU) has de­nied that in­dus­tri­al ac­tion by em­ploy­ees is re­spon­si­ble for de­lays in bus ser­vices at the Pub­lic Trans­port Ser­vice Cor­po­ra­tion’s (PTSC) Port-of-Spain de­pot.

The de­nial comes af­ter the PTSC said dis­rup­tions to ser­vice were linked to in­dus­tri­al ac­tiv­i­ty by work­ers.

Sev­er­al com­muters who use the Port-of-Spain—Ari­ma bus route have com­plained of fre­quent de­lays and oc­ca­sion­al can­cel­la­tions since last week.

In a me­dia re­lease yes­ter­day af­ter­noon, the PTSC said it was aware of the de­lays and at­trib­uted them to sev­er­al bus­es be­ing with­drawn from ser­vice due to in­dus­tri­al ac­tiv­i­ty.

The cor­po­ra­tion said the ac­tion in­volved “em­ploy­ees re­fus­ing to op­er­ate as­signed ser­vices, the shut­ting down of cer­tain work ar­eas, and in­stances of ‘go slow’ ac­tions.”

The PTSC added that “in­ter­nal process­es” were be­ing en­gaged to ad­dress the is­sues.

How­ev­er, when con­tact­ed for com­ment, TI­WU pres­i­dent Shawn Roberts said he was un­aware of any such ac­tion and ex­pressed con­fu­sion over the PTSC’s state­ment.

“When it comes to in­dus­tri­al ac­tion, we don’t know any­thing about that. Right now PTSC is mov­ing in good faith with us. We have no prob­lem with PTSC, so I don’t see why they would put out some­thing say­ing there is il­le­gal in­dus­tri­al ac­tion,” Roberts said.

“I don’t know any­thing about that.”

Roberts said the union was ex­pect­ed to meet with PTSC of­fi­cials to­mor­row as part of on­go­ing ne­go­ti­a­tions and ex­pressed hope that the state­ment would not af­fect their abil­i­ty to main­tain cor­dial di­a­logue.

When Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed the PTSC bus ter­mi­nal at City Gate, South Quay, Port-of-Spain, yes­ter­day af­ter­noon, a long line of com­muters was seen at the Ari­ma/La Hor­quet­ta queue await­ing the ar­rival of a bus.

Clerks at the in­for­ma­tion booth told trav­ellers that a bus orig­i­nal­ly sched­uled to ar­rive at 3 pm would in­stead ar­rive about an hour lat­er.

One com­muter, My­lyn Roberts-Smith, said the de­lays had sig­nif­i­cant ef­fects on the dai­ly rou­tines of many peo­ple who re­ly heav­i­ly on the bus ser­vice.

She not­ed that trav­el­ling by maxi taxi was not al­ways an op­tion.

“I may have $10 to get home, but there are moth­ers here with three or four chil­dren who prob­a­bly don’t have that mon­ey. That is frus­trat­ing be­cause then you have to wait here un­til what­ev­er time they de­cide to send a bus,” she said.

“I can bite the bul­let and take a maxi, but not every­one can do that, and this is a dai­ly oc­cur­rence.”

An­oth­er com­muter, Hol­lis Alexan­der, said he had been aware of the de­lays since last week and be­lieved the sit­u­a­tion should be re­solved quick­ly.

Alexan­der, 73, said that while he was re­tired and could af­ford to wait, the de­lays would be dif­fi­cult for oth­ers.

“I have the time to do that, but peo­ple who have to go to work or are re­turn­ing home from work will have an is­sue,” he said.

“Peo­ple re­ly on the bus sys­tem, and when they fin­ish work they just want to go home.”