The plight of the 644 ArcelorMittal workers who have been put on the breadline following the shutdown of the steel plant at Point Lisas has triggered calls from trade unions for amendments to the country’s labour laws to give more protection to workers.
Among those making that call is Michael Annisette, secretary general of the National Trade Union Center (NATUC), who said there is need to revise the 1985 Retrenchment and Severance Benefits Act which provides for the payments of severance benefits to retrenched workers.
“The laws need to be changed immediately to give workers' benefits like pensions and salaries more priority,” he said. “Based on the present laws, only if the company’s indebtedness to the bank is less that its assets will workers’ get some benefits,” he told the T&T Guardian in a telephone interview from Barbados.
Annisette is calling for Government, labour and business sector to work together to come up with a solution on the ArcelorMittal issue.
“It is possible that there can be a takeover of the company and then workers can be re-trained to work in other industries. This is not just an ArcelorMittal problem, it is a national issue, that we all have to solve,” he said.
Labour consultant Robert Giuseppi said it seems while multinationals are given incentives to set up plants in T&T there is an imbalance in the relationship and employees and country do not benefit.
“ArcelorMittal does not care about T&T. There are imbalances in the arrangement with these foreign companies. The Government must address this. The multinationals are walking away with their pockets fat. We need revision of the legislation to protect workers. It is more than just reforming labour laws, there is another financial legislation that must also be looked at in the relationship between companies and their workers,” Giuseppi said.
ABOUT ARCELORMITTAL
ArcelorMittal, the world’s largest steelmaker said last month that it expects iron and steel prices to remain under pressure through out this calendar year. The firm reported a net loss of US$7.9 billion last year mostly because of a US$4.8 billion writedown on iron ore mining business and a US$1.3 billion charge on inventory due to the global steel price plunge.
ArcelorMittal was created by the takeover of Western European steel maker Arcelor by Indian-owned multinational steel maker Mittal Steel in 2006, at a cost of €40.37 per share, approximately US$33 billion total. The resulting merged business was named ArcelorMittal and is headquartered in Luxembourg. It produces approximately ten per cent of the world’s steel.
The Mittal family owns 40 per cent of the shares and voting shares in the company. Formed as Ispat International in 1978, the company took over the former state-owned Iron and Steel Company of T&T (ISCOTT) in 1989.