aTP- Arab tourism portal News
Inside this Issue: Message from Peter Sinon, SG SLU. SLU stand with Taxis at meeting with Ministers Bastienne & Lalanne.Taxi Association and Labour Union stand with Taxi Operators. Sea Cucumber Divers meet Seychelles Labor Union and agree on cooperation. Truck Owners and Drivers protest in Victoria with success. Taxi Associating demand their “Right of Reply” to Speaker Nicholas Prea. Daniel Morin Farm y ouver son laboutik Plaisance
Reflection points in this issue – STC Hypermarket staff you are now in the firing line. Members of the Seychelles Army, we sympathise with you. Air Seychelles Staff Redundancies. FARMERS FEELING LET DOWN. Nurses & General Health Workers are still not being adequately remunerated. School teachers, has anything really changed? Assumption Island deal – Shame on Seychelles. Costs of food, electricity, water and fuel are No Longer Acceptable!
Seychelles Defence Forces
&
Air Seychelles Staff
Message from
Secretary General Peter Sinon
The months of February and March 2018 have featured daring and memorable workers’ action. Prominent amongst all, were the truck drivers who orchestrated a peaceful protest by State House avenue until their grievances were heard and solutions found.
The source of their discontentment was the arrival in the country of competing trucks by a Chinese company which has allegedly been awarded the contract to elevate the La Gogue dam by 6 meters.
So far, the only way to get things sorted in the country seems to be to take the grievances to the gates of State House.
Negotiations ensued and the trucks were eventually removed. Once again, it was a direct appeal to the Head of State that had to be done for a receptive audience with the appropriate Ministers to be secured and some results to be agreed upon, even though the matter is still far from being resolved.
Similar actions to paralyse Victoria could have been emulated by the taxi drivers. They forwarded a petition letter to the President with their long-standing issues, prompting action to be taken in their case. They met with the Seychelles Labor Union (SLU), which was ready and willing to accompany the taxi drivers to their negotiation meetings and see to it that actions and follow-up of agreed courses are carried out.
A comprehensive and thorough meeting between the Taxi Driver’s Association with Ministers Bastienne and Loustau Lalanne, in the presence of the President and Secretary-General of SLU, addressed all the highlighted issues. The two Ministers and their PSs need to be congratulated for their willingness to hear the challenges being faced by the Taxi Operators.
It was agreed that a Committee would be formed to work on possible and most practical recommendations that will be presented to the Ministers, on which taxi drivers will sit.
Assomption Island remains the most hotly debated and discussed issue in Seychelles at the moment. It is becoming one of those situations where the more the authorities try to explain, the less the people know. Relevant Ministries which would be impacted by this project are publicly declaring that they are unaware of what will be built on Assomption and how many staff will be assigned on the island. In fact, the whole project plan and design appear to be shrouded in mystery. Nevertheless, word has broken out on social media and it would indicate that the Government had either signed an agreement in complete darkness in the name of the people of Seychelles, effectively sleep-walking into a super-power rivalry between India and China in the Indian Ocean, or they were hoping that the Seychellois people would remain none the wiser about this affair.
The public, who were not consulted at the relevant time, are now being given drips of carefully sanitized information to come on board before the Agreement is referred to the Seychelles National Assembly for ratification.
Calls for a referendum have been publicly refuted by the Secretary of State of Foreign Affairs, Mr. Barry Faure, indicating that the signed deal will go ahead, despite the protests and petitions. Government representatives have indicated in their public consultation meetings that the project will go ahead with or without ratification by the National Assembly. The Leader of the Opposition, on his part, has boldly stated that the deal will not be ratified and that it should not be tabled to the National Assembly.
The Seychelles Labour Union joins all bona fide Seychellois who recognise the danger in this deal, and is strongly opposed to welcoming any military facility from any country on the planet to be established on any of our islands. It is our view that the established, tried and tested non-alignment policy of “friends to all and enemy to none” has served us very well during the cold war and more recently during the piracy scourge.
The need to “Respect, Recognize, Remunerate to have a Responsible workforce” remains more relevant today as it has ever been. In the Assomption debacle, it is essential that the voices of the people are respected and recognized because posterity and the legacy of the present leaders will rest on the route they decide to pursue for our beloved country.
http://mailchi.mp/a4bc171b7cf0/workers-news-5th-edition
