CHINA-BASED firm, Beijing Liujing Construction Company (TT) Ltd, says its disgruntled workers who staged a protest four days ago are claiming a performance deposit which they forfeited.

In a release yesterday, the company said it had paid all salaries due to these workers and is now making arrangements for their travel back to China at the cost of TT$17,000 per person.

About 100 Chinese nationals employed with the company gathered on the north-bound lane of the Uriah Butler Highway on Tuesday, saying they had not been paid in two months and refused to return to work at the Five Rivers Secondary School compound in Arouca or where they were being housed in Cunupia.

The protests also stalled work at the site of the Aranjuez Government Secondary.

Yesterday, the company said the key area of dispute with its ex-employees is payment of a performance deposit, a sum that the company is contractually obliged to pay to workers on the successful completion of a contract.

’In the case of the recently terminated workers, the deposit which is being claimed by the workers, was forfeited when the workers elected to terminate their contracts before completion of the projects on which they were hired to work,’ the company said.

The company said the workers were contracted in China upon agreed terms for a guaranteed period of a minimum of 18 months employment, but the disputed deposit fee is not linked to that period but to the life of the project on which they were hired to work.

’In the case of the current dispute over the deposit fee, the company has been advised that the workers who have opted to terminate their contract after the minimum period of guaranteed employment, but before completion of the project, are in breach of contract and must therefore forfeit the right to this payment.’

The company also pointed out that the workers enjoyed wages of TT$24 an hour ’which was attractive and highly competitive with what is paid in China’.

On concerns about alleged unsanitary living conditions in Cunupia, the company said: ’The conditions we see being portrayed in the media are not recognisable to us as conditions provided for our employees.’

Inspectors of the Occupational Safety and Health Agency visited the site on Thursday and reported that they used ’moral suasion’ to have remedial measures taken regarding the general hygiene of the domestic facility. The company expressed its commitment to ’working towards an expeditious resolution of this matter’.

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Labour said yesterday that the OSH inspectors had discovered hygiene issues at the domestic facility in Chaguanas where many of the workers were staying during a site visit yesterday.

The inspectors, however, were unable to take any action because section 51(1) of the OSH Act excludes premises occupied for residential purposes only from the definition of ’Industrial Establishment’.

’Accordingly, since these quarters are removed from the work site, they do not fall within the OSH Act. In discussions with a company representative, moral suasion was used to have remedial measures taken with regard to the general hygiene at this domestic facility,’ the Labour Ministry said in a release.

It stated that the work place and health conditions at the Aranjuez and Five Rivers Junior Secondary project sites ’were found to be satisfactory’, with only minor irregularities at the latter site.

Labour Minister Rennie Dumas met with executives from the company and the Chinese Embassy yesterday, and subsequently appointed two top Government officials to ’work with’ them to bring the matter to an end as quickly and as amicably as possible.