Local
contractors upset over Chinese labour
The
Trinidad Guardian
Port
Spain
Petroleumworldtt.com
07 16 07
Local contractors are up-in-arms against
the use of Chinese labour in this country saying
that it could be illegal.
Construction magnate and executive chairman of
NH International (Caribbean) Ltd (NHIC) Emile Elias
said the Chinese labourers may not only be breaking
the work permit laws but the Occupational Safety
and Health Act too.
And
President of the Contractors Association of T&T Mikey Joseph is adamant that before any
foreign labourers are employed in T&T, attempts
must be first made to fill the positions locally.
Elias
said, “If you have something to learn
from the Chinese then let’s learn it. If
you give these Chinese people a job and none of
them can speak English, then there is no transfer
of technology.
“So
I would say that in this wave of Chinese contractors
that it would be a condition to have
them in joint-ventures with local contractors.
And I would urge the Government to stop criticising
the work ethic of our people as the reason for
bringing in more and more Chinese.”
Local plumbers
Joseph
said, “You are supposed to advertise
the positions in the media first. Then there must
be interviews and then the firm has to make an
application for the skills that are not available
in sufficient quantity.”
He
said the advertisements are supposed to appear
in the media for two weeks. “That’s
the law,” he said.
Joseph
said the only time locals are employed by the
Chinese corporations operating in T&T
were for electrical and plumbing works. He said
this was because the laws only allow a local electrician
to put in electrical installations and a local
plumber to certify plumbing works.
He
also noted that the work permit laws also allow
for the training of locals so after one year, T&T
nationals should be competent in the skill supplied
by the foreigner who was employed via a work permit.
Elias
said, “The work permit law is being
broken because everybody have to advertise and
prove that you can’t find the people locally
before you bring in foreigners.
“You look at the sites these Chinese are
working and they are doing labouring work. You
tell me there are no labourers available in T&T,
not even tea-ladies?”
Regarding
the Occupational Safety and Health laws, Elias
said, “You cannot put a man on a roof
without any harness. I have seen Chinese workers
on a roof on the Prime Minister’s residence
and they have no safety gears, if they fall off
there, what is going to happen? That is a criminal
act under the current law.”
Elias also said there may even be a breach of
the minimum wage legislation.
“If
you work more than the statutory number of hours
a day you have to be paid double time
and triple time.
“I
ask: Are they being paid in accordance with our
minimum wage legislation and are they
paying taxes and PAYE?
“But
if they are joint-ventures, they would be subject
to the same laws as the local contractors
who would make sure that the laws are followed.”
Elias said the shortage of skilled labour should
be rectified when state-run programmes such as
Must begin to bear fruit.
But, he said there should be the expansion in
training at the supervisory and management levels,
the general foreman level and in site engineering.
Elias
said the Government needed to prioritise its
projects and that four areas—housing,
health, education and crucial infrastructural projects
such as the road network—needed attention.
Big projects
The
Government’s housing programme is the
single greatest success of this PNM administration,
said Elias.
“This is an excellent area because it does
use a lot of semi-skilled people, it uses small
contractors, it will tend to hone their management
skills, you can have big projects and also you
can have ten houses where you can give small contractors
to build so they learn how to become medium and
then large contractors,” he said.
In comparison, Elias felt that Nipdec has been
managing the health sector programme poorly.
He cited the San Fernando General Hospital where
phase one of a project to extend and refurbish
the building was done by NHIC.
“We
were the successful contractor for phase two,
which was about $80 million to really expand
and bring the San Fernando hospital to a first
world standard. And instead of awarding us the
job, the project was just cancelled and four years
later not a single speck of work done.
The
Trinidad Guardian
Sunday 15th July, 2007
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