Planned strike by CTL engineers averted

A planned strike for Saturday, October 3 by members of the engineering department of Caymanas Track Limited was averted late Friday afternoon following the intervention of CTL’s  Deputy Chairman Andrew Azar.

RJR Sports obtained a letter in which the workers of the engineering department wrote on Thursday, threatening industrial action at the nation's only horse racing plant starting 12:30 Saturday afternoon.

This over a reclassification exercise by the management of CTL.

“We felt that during that time we did not get our due so we want them to review everything that they had sent. The job description they had sent out for our department had a lot of discrepancies so we want them to clear these up so that we can move forward,” said Sashauna Walker who works in the engineering department.          

The CTL Chief Executive Officer, Cedric Stewart, who had responded to the engineers at their stipulated deadline of Friday afternoon in a bid to avert the strike, declined comment when contacted by our sports desk.

However, Azar, the Deputy Chairman of the CTL board, spoke with RJR Sports after meeting with the engineers.

“This staff here loves CTL, they love racing and they love the company but sometimes desperate times call for desperate actions and a lot of them are experiencing desperate times and we must understand it, sit with them and work it out. They are not the enemy, they are our family, our staff everyday and that’s how we must work out this problem,” said Azar.

The letter written by Stewart to the engineering workers, indicated a committee would convene on or before October 13 to sort out the reclassification issue.