President General of the All Trinidad General Workers Trade Union, Nirvan Maharaj, is calling on government to consider raising the minimum wage to $20 in the new year. This as he says something must be done to balance the mounting cost of living in the context of the pandemic. Mr. Maharaj also said there is need for labour legislative reform, in order to protect thousands of workers who have lost their jobs in 2020.

“In this time of the COVID 19 Pandemic, with increasing retrenchment, layoffs and unemployment it is imperative that the Government seek to alleviate the plight of the growing mass of unemployed persons through the protection of the Law,” the union leader said. 

“This is especially vital in a time when many Companies unjustifiably are attempting to use COVID 19 as an excuse to circumvent existing collective agreements, reduce the labour force and force existing workers to multi task and do two and three jobs at the same time, unilaterally implement decisions adversely affecting workers, exploit and oppress workers to the maximum, without realising that in many cases the problems facing Companies are not the labour force as much as it is a lack of proper management, poor management decisions and the refusal of Companies to realise that 10 million dollars in 2019 and 8 million dollars profit in 2020 is still a profit and management and labour must work together to ensure company survivability and worker employability,” he said.