Lead Editor – Newsgathering[email protected]The National Trade Union Centre of Trinidad and Tobago (NATUC) is warning that Government’s plan to deploy prisoners sentenced to hard labour to maintain public spaces must prioritise rehabilitation rather than create a source of low-cost labour. “We are going to reintroduce where persons who have been charged and convicted by a court and sentenced to hard labour. “Rehabilitation cannot become a convenient source of cheap or substitute labour at the expense of unemployed and displaced workers,” Annisette said. The labour body also warned that inmate labour must not displace existing or unemployed workers. NATUC said it would oppose any arrangement in which inmate labour is used to eliminate established jobs, suppress wages, undermine collective bargaining, avoid hiring workers or replace decent employment with unpaid or low-cost labour.