In a Sean Douglas story published in Newsday on June 8, the first vice president of the Oilfield Workers Trade Union (OWTU) Sati Gajadhar-Innis was featured in a picture supported on one side by David Abdulah, leader of the political party the Movement for Social Justice (MSJ), which supports and is supported by the OWTU, and on the other side by the very articulate and popular vice president of OWTU, Ozzie Warwick. Her appearance was welcome.
It was welcome for a number of reasons: first because the event was focusing on maternity protection, and secondly because it featured Gajadhar-Innis, one of the labour leaders rarely seen in the national press.
It was not an OWTU function per se, it was hosted by the MSJ in preparation for the upcoming Labour Day celebration and the topic under discussion was maternity protection.
Mr Abdulah, who is a brilliant and persuasive speaker, was quoted as saying that some companies tell female workers who return to work after they have given birth that they "can reapply for their substantive positions."
He was corrected by Ms Gajadhar-Innis, who is reported by the senior and very experienced reporter Mr Douglas in the following paragraph as saying: "As Comrade Abdulah would have said, when our women get pregnant, they are sent home. When they return to the job, they either have to apply for a new position or actually have to take up some menial job instead of returning to their substantial position."
That is wrong. Why it was quoted I cannot understand. It is simply not true. In TT, women who are employed are not sent home on getting pregnant. That would be illegal and grossly unfair.
It is important that this impression be corrected. There was a time when young women in the relevant age range were denied employment if it was thought they might get pregnant soon after being hired, because of the cost to the employer of maternity leave, but that no longer happens because of the way contracts of employment are drafted, and women who intend to get pregnant can, thanks to birth control, wait until they can afford to do so.
Mr Douglas went on to report that Ms Gajadhar-Innis claimed this occurs across the board, even in big companies.
[caption id="attachment_1088660" align="alignnone" width="1024"] Sati Gajadhar Inniss, first vice president of the OWTU speaks to the media at Woodford Square, Port of Spain on June 5. - Photo by Faith Ayoung[/caption]
If this is true, I am grateful and appreciative that Ms Gajadhar-Innis has brought this to public attention, and trust that the Labor Inspectorate of the Ministry of Labour, whose responsibility it is to ensure that our labour laws are followed, and that women in this country are not exploited by people who employ them.
Surely after 30 years the Labour Inspectorate has a system whereby it can identify which "big companies" are breaking the law and exploiting new mothers and can take action against them?
The law reads in section 7 that: "Women employees are entitled, after 14 weeks' maternity leave, to go back and retu
