Shutdown continues

Tomorrow's scheduled Ash Wednesday meet at Caymanas Park could be cancelled as two meetings yesterday to end strike action by unionised workers of Caymanas Track Limited (CTL) did little to encourage optimism.

The first meeting yesterday morning at the Liguanea Club, New Kingston, was convened by the CTL board to address the impasse between the workers represented by UTASP and the management of CTL, which resulted in a shutdown of racing at Caymanas Park last Saturday over the failure of CTL to sign off on benefits in phase two of a reclassification exercise.

With CTL board chairman Christopher Brown still off the island, deputy chairman of CTL, Andrew Azar, chaired the meeting and the six board members voted not to sign the document and the matter was deferred to the Ministry of Labour.

The latter convened a second meeting at its North Street offices yesterday at 4 p.m. to come up with a back-to-work formula with a view of saving the Ash Wednesday meet.

That meeting which involved the workers and their representative UTASP general secretary St Patrice Ennis on one hand, along with ministry officials and Azar on the other hand, was still in progress six hours later.

Contacted last night, racing secretary Denzil Miller Jr said: ... At this stage, it is difficult, but not impossible (to have racing tomorrow) ... but a lot will depend on the outcome of last night's meeting.