An­drea Perez-Sobers

Se­nior Re­porter

an­drea.perez-sobers@guardian.co.tt

The Bank­ing, In­sur­ance, and Gen­er­al Work­ers Union (BIG­WU) is re­port­ed­ly dis­ap­point­ed with the out­come of a re­cent meet­ing with the man­age­ment of su­per­mar­ket chain Tru Valu.

One of BIG­WU’s se­nior labour re­la­tions of­fi­cers for Tru Valu, Wes­ley Fran­cis, told Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day that the meet­ing on Wednes­day was held amid the re­cent pub­li­ca­tion that both the su­per­mar­ket and Long Cir­cu­lar Mall are up for sale, with the union con­cerned that the su­per­mar­ket has out­stand­ing agree­ments to set­tle.

“While there are col­lec­tive agree­ments that are be­fore the court and the com­pa­ny and the union are try­ing to ne­go­ti­ate a set­tle­ment, par­tic­u­lar­ly with a 2018 mat­ter in­volv­ing the week­ly paid staff, we have been back and forth with the com­pa­ny of­fer­ing a set­tle­ment pack­age, but then they have backpedalled, say­ing that the board has to ap­prove. That meet­ing gave no as­sur­ance that the board would ap­prove what the com­pa­ny has pro­posed or what the com­pa­ny has of­fered,” he lament­ed.

Apart from the col­lec­tive agree­ments, Fran­cis point­ed out there are oth­er out­stand­ing mat­ters that are be­fore the court and there is one that the union won some years ago and the com­pa­ny ap­pealed.

He said, “Rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the com­pa­ny were tight-lipped about the sale of the su­per­mar­ket chain. They kept throw­ing every­thing on the liq­uida­tors, Grant Thorn­ton, but at the same time, con­tra­dict­ed them­selves in say­ing that they are all one team, the man­age­ment and the liq­uida­tors.”  

Point­ing to what hap­pened a few years ago Fran­cis said Tru Valu, com­pris­ing out­lets in both the north and south, sold four su­per­mar­kets lo­cat­ed in the north to East­ern Com­mer­cial Lands (ECL) in or around Sep­tem­ber 2003.  

The Union had recog­ni­tion for all the Tru Valu out­lets, but ECL was not will­ing to recog­nise the union as the recog­nised ma­jor­i­ty union (RMU).  

He said the union then ap­plied for suc­ces­sor­ship and the In­dus­tri­al Court Ruled on Feb­ru­ary 17th 2009 that ECL was in­deed the suc­ces­sor.  

“ECL then ap­pealed the judg­ment in 2009 and the Ap­peal Court up­held the de­ci­sion of the In­dus­tri­al Court on May 18, 2010, there­by re-af­firm­ing our recog­ni­tion sta­tus.

 "In the event a new com­pa­ny pur­chas­es ECL, there is every like­li­hood that BIG­WU may face the same dilem­ma, which can have a neg­a­tive ef­fect on cur­rent col­lec­tive agree­ments that are be­fore the court, as well as oth­er trade dis­putes, as the new com­pa­ny may choose not to set­tle these out­stand­ing mat­ters, leav­ing them in abeyance,” Fran­cis dis­closed.

He not­ed that the union was left with many unan­swered ques­tions and had no up­date for the 350 em­ploy­ees from the five branch­es of the su­per­mar­ket.

In 2020, the liq­uida­tors of CL Fi­nan­cial, Grant Thorn­ton, out­lined plans to ready prop­er­ties for sale that were di­rect­ly and in­di­rect­ly owned by CL Fi­nan­cial. Tru Valu and Long Cir­cu­lar Mall are owned by one of the group’s sub­sidiaries, Home Con­struc­tion Ltd.

The High Court ap­proved the pro­posed sale of both Tru Valu and Long Cir­cu­lar Mall in Sep­tem­ber last year.