Chairman of the Employers’ Consultative Association (ECA) Martin de Gannes is expecting mixed results to the call of trade unionists for workers to stay away from work today.

Trade union leaders from the Federation of Independent Trade Unions (Fitun) and the National Trade Union Centre (Natuc) have called on workers to stay away from their jobs to reflect on the problems that were affecting the country like crime, inflation and poverty.

Today is also the day T&T’s Olympic medallist Richard Thomas and the rest of the Olympic team would be feted by the government for their medal winning feat during the Olympics.

De Gannes said, “It is difficult to say what employers anticipate. In different parts of T&T there will be different results. In some parts there will be work as usual. In other parts that are heavily unionised there will be support.”

He said what was important was that people don’t see the shut down as a zero sum game.

He said the ECA had been calling for dialogue and that was the only way for the problems in T&T to be solved.

De Gannes said there must be dialogue among labour, business and the government.

He said, “In 2000 there was the social compact among all the partners but it died a natural death when there was a change in government. We need to go back to that.”