Cabinet cannot continue allowing the national labour discussion to be reduced to the false narrative that citizens “do not want to work” while ignoring the reality of wages and conditions being offered in today’s economy.
Many of these jobs pay salaries that cannot support rent, groceries, transport, utilities, and family life, while some immigrant workers, out of desperation, are reportedly sleeping in cars, overcrowded rooms, and enduring conditions no society should quietly normalise.
That is not a sign of a healthy labour market; it is evidence of an economy drifting toward survival labour and wage suppression. If employers can access vulnerable labour willing to accept lower pay, fewer protections, little overtime, and weak enforcement, then citizens are not refusing work, they are refusing poverty.
Government must decide whether Trinidad and Tobago will build an economy based on decent wages, lawful working conditions, and dignity for all workers, or whether it will continue down the dangerous path of cheap labour replacing sustainable employment, social stability, and the future of the middle and working classes.
Gordon Laughlin,
Westmoorings
