PP gov't to ban pensioners from URP, include 18-25 year olds

The Government of Trinidad and Tobago will review the employment practices in the Unemployment Relief Programme (URP) to ensure that all adults qualify to work on URP projects.

The URP started off under the Williams PNM as a make-work project and an attempt at welfare. Over the years it has gone through many incarnations, and has become more of a system of political patronage.

Speaking in the Senate on the budget debate Tuesday, acting Prime Minister and Labour Minister Errol McLeod said the People's partnership government aims to change the system to allow people between 18 and 25 to be able to work in the URP. The former administration had excluded youths from the URP.

Mc Leod also said he would end the current practice of allowing persons over the normal retirement age of 65 to continue getting work in the program.

He said while the Manning PNM administration "sought to shut out the 18 to 25-years-olds, they continued to employ those who are pensioners...This administration has determined that we would review the exclusion policy."

He added, "And we would definitely not include, at all, anybody who is age 65 years and is in receipt of a pension... To every 65 and above who is in receipt of a pension, each one of them would be replaced by some younger person," McLeod declared.

The minister also announced Government plans to review the country's labour legislation, promising to work "with fervour" in revising and updating the Industrial Relations Act(IRA), Retrenchment and Severance Benefits Act, Workers' Compensation Act and the Cooperative Societies Act.

He said the changes to the IRA will make it easier for all worker to join trade unions and provide measures as "to bring to justice any employer who is found guilty of denying workers the right to join unions of their choice."

Mc Leod also spoke about the minimum wage, which is going up from $9 an hour to $12.50 an hour, which amounts to $100.00 for a normal eight-hour day.

He said while the government wanted to help people at the lowest rung of the ladder it was also careful to consider the impact of any changes on business.

"A Minister of Labour who takes the high ground above partisan interest must see the requirements of the small employer as he would look after the interest of the small and vulnerable employee," McLeod declared.

He said the PNM has no moral authority to criticise the measures proposed by the new government. "They did nothing, at a time when the resources would have more easily facilitated the application of an increase in the minimum wage," he said.

He is not hyet satisfied with the minimum wage, which he said must be high enough to ensure a socially accepted standard of living. However he noted that there must be a balance between the mimimum wage and the risk of creating inflationary pressures and unemployment with a too high wage.

McLeod also told the Senate of plans to work with the farming community to subsidise them through the use of URP workers. The partnering would involve the private farmers paying some of the wage for the URP worker with the government putting the rest.

He said discussions are "well-advanced" on a memorandum of understanding for 480 workers to be involved in such a project.

McLeod insisted that the URP must be based on "transparency, respect, dignity and equity" adding that all communities...would have access to the benefits of the program, with no regard to political affiliation".