BREAKING: Racing cancelled at Caymanas Park

Saturday’s 10 race programme at Caymanas Park has been cancelled due to industrial action by workers of the promoting company Caymanas Track Limited (CTL).

Workers of various departments at CTL took industrial action just before 5:00 pm on Thursday afternoon which resulted in a shutdown of the operations including simulcast racing.

The workers are protesting over the failure of the CTL management to implement elements in phase two of a reclassification exercise which had been verbally agreed on between CTL and the Union of Technical, Administrative and Supervisory Personnel (UTASP), the union representing the workers.

Up to late Friday night, representatives of CTL, UTASP and  union delagates from the employee ranks were locked in a meeting at Caymanas Park, trying to hammer out an agreement.

The meeting which started on Thursday evening and came over into Friday, lasted for more than nine hours without an agreement being reached.

General Secretary of UTASP, St Patrice Ennis told RJR Sports they were trying to finalise the Collective Labour Agreement for the contract period 2015-2017. He also said uncertainly over the long term future of the company had the workers unsettled.

Saturday's simulcast racing programme from Gulfstream Park has also been cancelled. Efforts to reach CTL’s Chief Executive Officer Cedric Stewart up to Saturday morning, were unsuccessful.

In the meantime, Caymanas Track Limited has called a press conference for Saturday morning at 11:00.