CABINET yesterday advised Public Utilities Minister Mustapha Abdul Hamid and Works and Transport Minister Colm Imbert to meet with the management of the Telecommunication Services of Trinidad and Tobago (TSTT) and the Public Transport Service Corporation (PTSC) respectively, to have them reconsider moves to decertify the Transport and Industrial Workers Union (TIWU) and the Communication Workers Union (CWU) as the representative unions for those companies.

This was the word from Minister in the Ministry of Finance Mariano Browne at yesterday’s post-Cabinet briefing at the Diplomatic Centre, St Ann’s.

’And they (line ministers) have been instructed to have those conversations as soon as possible,’ Browne told the media.

Browne said that Cabinet was ’surprised to note’ the moves by a statutory corporation and a State enterprise, PTSC and TSTT respectively, to decertify the two recognised bargaining entities or unions.

He added that as a result of the actions, which they ’noted in the press’, Cabinet took a decision and advised the relevant line ministers to interface with the management and ’move immediately to reconsider those moves or efforts to decertify the unions’.

Last month, TSTT applied to the Industrial Court to have the unions decertified, as the latest chapter in a row that escalated last July when employees stormed TSTT headquarters to deliver a petition to the company’s chief executive officer, Roberto Peon.

However, yesterday, Browne noted that Cabinet’s position was ’that we do not support irresponsible and confrontational behaviour on the parts of the unions and such behaviour is to be deprecated’, and any behaviour that did not fall within the ambit of the Industrial Relations Act was to be discouraged.

He said there had been a number of questions asked about Government’s role and position regarding the matter, and it was clear that they supported responsible dialogue and a dialogue process ’that allows them to keep in touch and the business of the economy to move forward’.

He noted that yesterday, Cabinet also considered the issue of productivity and relationships in terms of labour relations and industrial relations in the context of the wider development of tripartite-type approach, which would involve the business sector, Government and labour.