Tone it down Mrs. Mahabir-Wyatt

One need not try too hard to guess what class of society Mrs. Diana Mahabir-Wyatt belongs to with her latest letter to the Express Editor entitled “Industrial Relation Act Gives Government Power to Act”. In her letter she outlined briefly how the Industrial Relations Act was established and the fact that the Industrial Court was established under said Act to deal with current issues such as the current impasse between the Government and Trade Unions. She lamented the fact that both Government and Trade Unions are refusing to refer their matters to the Industrial Court and questioned whether they wanted a reasoned and sober solution. I find it very disingenuous on Ms. Mahabir-Wyatt’s part to give mention to the Industrial Court without mentioning the fact that said court is underfunded and short staffed hence any matter that is referred to that court takes years to resolve. Whether her failure to disclose such blatant and well know facts was deliberate or due to ignorance is not certain, and while I cannot speak for employers such factors do weigh heavily on the minds of Trade Unionists who are seeking a speedy resolution in the interests of members that does not constitute blindly accepting 5% or whatever unreasonable offer is made by the employer.

Mrs. Mahabir-Wyatt then paid particular attention to Section 69 of the Industrial Relations Act which prohibits members of the Public Service, the Teaching Service, the Prison Service, the Fire Service and the Central Bank from going on strike. The Act further states the holder of an office in a trade union who calls for or causes industrial action to be taken or who induces or persuades any other person to take such action is liable on summary conviction to a fine of $10,000 and to imprisonment for 18 months." In Mrs. Mahabir-Wyatt’s estimation “industrial action” is an illegal strike which attempting to “shut down the country” would qualify as, and she lamented the fact that the government is ignoring the law and in her estimation, stated in closing that “we like it so”.

Quite frankly anyone who understands basic human psychology will know that the government of the day, whomever they may be, will do well to not only ignore that draconian law but to delete it from our law books altogether. I was highly amused by Mrs. Mahabir-Wyatt’s letter and found it novice to say the least, but worst yet I found it to be dangerous and void of deep contemplation as to the social consequences that could occur should the government take such a high handed approach. I was totally surprised that Mrs. Mahabir-Wyatt thinks that public servants striking despite a law preventing them from doing so is some kind of novelty and something unique to Trinidad and Tobago. On the contrary whether the right is given or not public servants, federal employees or civil servants as they are called in different parts of the world exercise the right to strike without compunction in countries such as Australia, United States, Canada, England, India and France.

As a matter of fact in the England from where our Westminster System came, public servants are not denied the right to strike unless their duties are necessary for the safety and security of the public. Civil servants in France are granted the right to strike under the French Constitution and in Canada at least five provinces grants public workers the right to strike, the others allow strike action even though it is not legal, while all prevent them from striking if they belong to the protective services. Even at a Federal level Canadian federal workers are allowed to strike within statutory limits as per the Federal Public Service Staff Relations Act of 1967. Despite having a long history of anti-strike laws, in the US today there are no less than 38 states which prevent public sector workers from striking and 12 states have actually legalized public sector striking. In his 1998 report “Behavioural Determinants of Public Sector Illegal Strikes”, Robert Hebdon surmised that due to the many laws that attempt to prevent workers from striking, in systems like the US and Canada the “illegal strike” is an inevitable element of these industrial systems.

S.T. Cooke summoned it up more precisely when he stated “Taking away the right to strike is a bit like eliminating the vapour safety valve on a boiler. Employees need to know that they have this means of relieving their frustrations and internal tension even if they never use it. Otherwise an explosion is inevitable”. The consequences of a government’s high handed approach can be seen in the manner in which the Reagan Government dealt with the striking Air Traffic Controllers back in 1981. Federal law required federal employees at that time to take an oath not to strike and made strike action illegal. Needless to say talks between the Professional Air Traffic Controllers and the Federal Aviation Administration broke down and the workers went on strike. The US District Court ruled the strike action illegal and a contempt of court and President Reagan ordered the firing of all air traffic controllers who did not return to work within forty eight hours of his order.

Despite the legal sanctions and threat of job loss only 800 employees returned to work within the President’s 48 hour deadline. Dismissal letters were issued to the non-compliant employees, however it must be noted that despite the Reagan Government’s firm stand, the entire action against the controllers proved to be totally ineffective. The sanctions totally disrupted air traffic services and the government precluded any form of settlement with the majority of the traffic controllers which ultimately aggravated the very situation they sought to remedy and prevent. After all was said and done it was the public and the economy that suffered the most from the firing of the air traffic controllers. Hence the reason I stated earlier that Mrs. Mahabir-Wyatt’s stance that the government implements the law seems novice to say the least and not well thought out.

I would also like to inform Mrs. Mahabir-Wyatt that the Industrial Act notwithstanding the fact that it is our national law, does in fact run counter to International Labour Conventions. The International Labour Organisation has repeatedly admonished and advised successive T&T Government’s that their term ‘essential services’ in the Industrial Act is excessively broad in comparison to International Labour Standards and it is successive T&T Governments, who are the agents of citizens of Trinidad and Tobago and who are supposed to be acting in our best interest, they are the ones who have repeatedly refused to amend the Industrial Act as advised by the ILO. The ILO has also repeatedly made calls for the Government of T&T to change the Collective Bargaining Laws of the Act which state that collective agreements must be for a maximum of five years and a minimum of three years making it almost impossible for workers on short term contracts to be covered by such agreements.

Mrs. Mahabir-Wyatt, now you understand why our government obstinately refuses to comply with International Labour Standards, it also explains their fondness for hiring people on contract! Our government the body which is supposed to be seeking our interest has been deliberately denying entire sectors of our economy, their legitimate rights by refusing to comply with International Labour Standards. As it stands the Industrial Relations Act of T&T is a flawed piece of legislation that runs counter to International Laws and Standards. As a matter of fact just as recent as April of this year the ILO Committee of Experts condemned the UK Government for preventing and denying prison officers the right to strike. The ILO has indicated that the UK Government either gives prison officers the right to strike or have adequate compensatory mechanisms in place to compensate prison officers for denying them the right to strike. Is Mrs. Mahabir-Wyatt aware of any such compensatory mechanisms in place for our security services here in T&T?

And last but not least, though she tried to make a joke of it, Mrs. Mahabir-Wyatt’s suggestion that the government acts with regard imprisoning for 18 months any one holding a trade union office and who instructs public servants to strike, had to be the least thought out aspect of her letter. Why would anyone advocate the jailing of any trade unionist at a volatile and heated industrial time like this is beyond me. I guess if nothing else we can all breathe a sigh of relief that Mrs. Mahabir-Wyatt is not the first female Prime Minister of this country because I dare say, the very state of emergency which the government claims to be dodging would have certainly been upon us by now. I’m keeping my fingers cross that Mrs. Persad-Biessessar would demonstrate a more levelled and reasoned head and contemplate deeply on her actions with regard this current labour impasse than her counterpart Mrs. Mahabir-Wyatt. As a former executive director for the Caribbean Centre for Human Rights I must say I'm surprised by the sentiments expressed by Mrs. Mahabir-Wyatt.

Subway Wins Round 1

I’m pleased to announce that Subway Trinidad Limited has won round one and thus retained me as a customer. Below is a caustic complaint I sent to Subway International @ www.subway.com, a complaint which stemmed from the poor service I received at Subway St James on Sunday 1 November 2009. What basically happened was the manager at that branch was selling spotted wilted old lettuce and passing it off as legitimate healthy lettuce.

I sent that email to Subway International around 9:30 pm and by 4:00 pm today (Monday) I received a phone call from a Ms. Bain who profusely apologise for the situation. Ms. Bain was quite pleasant and indicated to me that she actually does not see my complaint as a ‘complaint’ but as positive feedback as sometimes they may lose a customer and not know why so she was grateful that I took the time to address the issue that affected me.

Ms. Bain also confirmed my suspicions that the lettuce that was being served at this branch was in fact not to be served. She explained to me that the lettuce (Iceberg) is actually delivered from the US and sometimes ‘inevitably’ they may get a bad shipment (This I can totally understand), however she indicated and as I would have expected, whenever a branch receives a bad shipment of lettuce they are in fact supposed to return it to the supplier and not serve it to the end customer. Ms. Bain even gave me her mobile number (I suspect it’s a company phone but that’s beside the point) and told me if ever I should have any more problems at any branch I can feel free to call her and have the matter addressed. I will also be provided with vouchers for free subways as compensation for the terrible service I received. So hats off to the customer service at Subway I feel quite satisfied with the manner in which the issue was dealt. If ever any of you hard working Trinibagonians who like to ensure you get value for money should get any bad service from Subway....report them to the international branch at www.subway.com.

The service I received at that St. James branch is another example of poor customer service in this country. And I just want to say that the problem is not only on the side of business owners it is also on the side of consumers because consumers do not know their rights. While I was in the line complaining about the lettuce there were two young women behind me who were laughing at me, apparently in Trinidad and Tobago once you stand up for your rights you are the joke of the day. While cashing I noticed that the girl who attended to me applied copious amounts of brown lettuce to the sandwiches of those two laughing goons....much to their delight....apparently they are unable to tell the difference between spoilt and healthy lettuce. I’m the one who had the last laugh though, because now I have vouchers to receive free subways and all it cost me was an email to the right department. Bless!

The Complaint

Good evening, I would like to express my dissatisfaction at the level of service I received from the above branch (St James). Now I do realise that you guys are an international franchise but I would like to think that those who choose to represent you should do so in a manner that does not tarnish the image of your company. That said, I visited the above branch of Subway and noticed that the lettuce in the vegetables display were wilted and had lots of brown spots on it. I asked one of the workers to speak to the manager who incidentally was the person taking the orders, so I enquired of the status of the lettuce because apart from looking totally unappealing to the eye it looked quite rotten.

The manager to my surprise told me that the lettuce is "Iceberg" lettuce and that is how it comes. Now...nothing annoys me more than people trying to take me for an idiot, I purchase iceberg lettuce all the time from our local supermarket and I've never seen any with wilted leaves and brown spots and this is iceberg lettuce shipped from the US to our country! Clearly the manager thinking that because I'm a local I wouldn't know what iceberg lettuce looks like...attempts to hoodwink me so they can sell me their rotted lettuce.

The other assistant then proceeds to dress my sandwich with the same wilted spotted lettuce and when I asked her to take out the ones with the brown spots and wilted leaves she was more annoyed than I! This is nothing but third world customer service and totally unacceptable. It is disgraceful that these people are willingly selling the public of Trinidad and Tobago rotten vegetables with their subway sandwiches. According to this following website www.produceoasis.com/Items_folder/Vegetables/Iceberg.html it clearly states that one ought to avoid Iceberg lettuce or any lettuce for that matter that are wilted and has brown spots. I respectfully request that you submit this link to the owners of the Trinidad branch of subway so that they will know what healthy lettuce looks like and that they will also know that the citizens of Trinidad are not idiots...we know what healthy lettuce looks like as well.

Best Regards,
Oke Zachary

Abolishing the death penalty while pissing on the victims of crime

Let me start off by simply stating my position on the death penalty, I support it! I’m sick and tired of people saying the death penalty does not solve or is not a deterrent to crime so it should be abolished. If that is the case then I say break down all the prisons and turn them into shopping complexes because we could do with some extra ‘WestMalls’ in T&T and do away with the life imprisonment sentence because neither of these are solving crime nor are they proving to be deterrents. Currently no one is being hanged, everyone is being imprisoned and the murder rate keeps sky rocketing. People the reality is the death penalty was never meant to be a deterrent nor was it meant to be a cure to rampant crime or any crime for that matter.

The death penalty is simply the consequence of committing a particular crime just as life imprisonment or any imprisonment is a consequence for someone perpetrating a particular type of crime. The death penalty is based on the old adage an eye for an eye. It is based on the premise that the law seeks to promote equality and fairness, hence the statue of the blind woman with the balancing scale. Abolish the death penalty and the scale becomes skewed in the favour of criminals. On the 21st April 2009 gun men killed a man and his wife and then proceeded to burn their two children inside the house. Granting someone life imprisonment for this heinous, gut-less, premeditated crime does not equate to the lives of these four people, there is no way in hell that scale could balance!

What is even more stupid, is people who say the death penalty causes and promotes violence. What utter bollox! If that is the case then we should do away with all the laws against stealing, money laundering, driving recklessly, rape, child molestation etc, because all these laws are promoting the respective transgression right? Wrong, so the argument that having the death penalty on our law books promotes violence in our society is moot, it is dead, it defies logic. Another argument put forward by anti-death penalty activists is that there stands the chance of an innocent person being put to death. Well gee there is also the chance of an innocent person being found guilty of rape even though they didn’t do it and being sentenced to life imprisonment. Anyone can be mistakenly found guilty of any crime and you could also wrongfully be sentenced to life imprisonment.

I fail to see how imprisoning someone for life at the age of 25 and it is only when they reach 80 you find out that they were innocent all along, I fail to see how that is better or more humane than the death penalty so exactly what is the point with that argument? The fact of the matter is all human processes are subject to error and that includes law. Error is an inextricable part of the human fabric it cannot be eliminated. To say that you are going to abolish the death penalty because human beings are imperfect is rightfully stupid. In that case then all laws should be abolished because all laws and the methods by which people are held accountable to these laws are open to error.

Also people who promote this ridiculous argument shouldn’t fly because they could never tell which man made plane will give out in mid flight and they should never drive either because they could never tell which man made tyre will bust on them causing them to lose control of their car and be killed instantly. They should live a life of doubt, return to the caves of our ancestors and avoid the Sun God! In any event there have been tremendous advancements in technology that has increased the investigative abilities of law enforcement officers triple fold. Word to the wise, we no longer live in the 14th century, we are way past the Petri-dish era!

What amuses me about human rights organisations such as Amnesty International is that they are never around immediately after a crime is committed. When those gun men killed that family in April where was Amnesty International? Did Amnesty International issue a statement about these dead people’s rights and how they were brutally denied of their right to life? Did Amnesty International send any support units to assist the family members who were left behind to moan the loss of their daughter, son, and grandchildren? No, Amnesty International is never around when the victims of brutal crimes are being buried! But the minute a government decides to hang a perpetrator for committing a most gruesome act such as setting a house on fire with two little children in it; Amnesty International throws their hands in the air and pontificates to our government about human rights! Is it that only the criminals have rights?

Amnesty International likes to use statistics to prove that country’s that have abolished the death penalty have a lesser crime rate than those that retain the death penalty. What Amnesty International does not tell Joe Public is that the country’s with the lowest crime rates are also the most wealthiest, with the citizens of those countries living improved lives compared to the citizens of those countries with the death penalty but which also has a significant disparity with the distribution of national wealth. Having the death penalty in your law books does not cause crime, what causes crime is social inequality. However as human beings we all have choices and being poor does not justify taking the life of another human being, especially when you choose to sit on the block all day scratching your arse because you’re too lazy to go find a job. These criminals are like parasites that prey on the work force of a nation. We work, we do all the sweating and toiling and like parasites all they do is kill so they can consume and reap the benefits of our labour, they are like a malignant cancer that steals the life out of a human body. What do you do with a malignant cancer? Do you treat it? No, you gut it, you cut it off even if it means losing a breast or an entire limb. These criminals must be cut off permanently because they are a cancer to our society.

Another curious position Amnesty International has is the cost it takes to affect the death sentence. Amnesty claim it is simply too expensive for governments to affect the death penalty. Out of curiosity has anyone ever done a cost analysis on the effect of losing a productive citizen at the hands of these depraved criminals? Let’s say a business man aged 35 earns 400k per annum, he has three children and a wife who stays at home to take care of the household. Some criminals decide to rob him and in the process they put a bullet through his head to take from him what they are not entitled. Let’s say we give the businessman an economic life span up to the age of 65, has Amnesty International done any analysis of losses to governments through the loss of taxes they would have received from this business man? Losses which would no doubt be incremental because as the businessman aged and time passed by taking inflationary considerations to account he would no doubt be making more money at age 40, 50 and 60.

Have they estimated the losses to his family, his widow who now has to find a job and take care of her three children until they all reach legal age? And please don’t tell me about insurance because the pittance she will get from insurance isn’t going to last forever. Does Amnesty take into account the emotional and psychological cost of losing a husband, wife or children to violent crime? Furthermore does Amnesty International contribute financially to the families of victims of violent premeditated crime? Do they help pay the household bills after the sole or a significant bread winner is taken away? Do they attend all the parent day meetings of the now parent less children? Do they remember the anniversaries of the widows? Do they buy gifts for every birthday and leave a mark on the wall for every extra inch of growth? Does Amnesty International keep a widow warm in bed at night as she recoils into herself and stare at the empty spot where her hard working husband once lay?! I’m sure if all of the above costs are tallied it we would soon come to the conclusion that the price at which we hang the bastards is a bargain price!

Amnesty International and all these other anti-death penalty groups do absolutely nothing for the victims of violent crime. Family members are left on their own to pick up the pieces. With one hand members of anti-death penalty groups fight for the rights of criminals and demand the abolition of the death penalty while simultaneously holding their penises with their other hand and pissing on family members and on the graves of the victims of violent crime. Another silly argument that people like to throw at you is, ‘would you be willing to be the one to do the hanging’. The answer to that is quite simple, if it’s my wife and children that the bastard brutally killed then yes I will gladly pull the lever to pop his neck! But for those who want to be smart by asking that dumb question, are you willing to continue paying the deceased’s bills? Are you willing to continue to provide for his family and sustain their standard of living prior to the death of their loved one? Are you willing to attend all the birthday parties and graduation of the deceased’s children? Are you willing to foot the university bills of the deceased’s children?

The above are just some of the effects the loss of a loved one to brutal crime can have on a family. Families pay a high emotional and financial price when a lazy, depraved criminal premeditatedly and violently kills their loved ones. It is only fair that the punishment for such crime be equal to the rippling effect it has on the victim’s family. Giving this person perpetual accommodation courtesy state resources, along with food, entertainment and medical benefits can in no way be a just punishment for the suffering that person has caused unto others. People like to ask the question, ‘Have we become so depraved as a specie to repay violence with violence’. Well I often wonder, have we become so depraved that the rights of a criminal is now supreme to that of his victims? So much so that we are actually punishing society as a whole by seeking to force society to stand the costs of accommodating these wicked criminals in humane conditions that are acceptable to human rights groups like Amnesty International?

If Amnesty wants us to abolish the death penalty then I say let Amnesty International foot the expense of keeping T&T’s worst criminals alive. If such an agreement is unacceptable to Amnesty and I know it will be, then I say forward march to Woodford Square and let the necks start popping! We can all then visit any of our favourite watering holes on the Avenue and have a beastly cold beer, after which we can all take turns pissing on Amnesty International’s request for the abolition of the death penalty in T&T. ©