MANNING JEERED

PRIME MINISTER Patrick Manning was jeered yesterday by the striking Atlantic LNG Train IV construction workers as he urged them to return to work.  He was totally ignored by the defiant workers who vowed to continue their protest which has been dragging on for the past ten weeks. Manning headed a team which included new Labour Minister Anthony Roberts, PNM vice chairman John Donaldson, and Ambassador Plenipotentiary Jerry Narace.

They toured the workers’ strike camp in Point Fortin, in what turned out to be an unsuccessful attempt at having the workers return to their jobs at the stalled Atlantic LNG Train IV construction site. When Manning extended an olive branch to the workers, their response was resounding and final: none of them would go back to work and they vowed to stretch the ten-week-long strike to another ten weeks unless their demands for improved wages were met and agreed on by the project’s main contractor, Bechtel International.

However, the PM’s visit to Pt Fortin, which is a PNM stronghold, was not completely in vain as a hearty handshake and exchange of pleasantries with Pt Fortin MP Lawrence Achong seemed to suggest that the two had finally put aside their differences over the issue of labour unrest and a sectoral minimum wage, and were on the way to mending their relationship. Achong abruptly resigned as labour minister a month ago, when his efforts to have Cabinet agree to a sectoral minimum wage was shot down by the Manning Government. The relationship between Manning and Achong soured even more when Achong’s common-law wife successfully sued the Prime Minister over an attempt to have her moved as CEO of the San Fernando City Corporation and sent to the Point Fortin Borough Corporation.

Yesterday’s visit by the Prime Minister saw a larger than normal police presence at the strike camp. Manning, who was at first welcomed by workers, was later jeered when his answers to the workers’ questions displeased them and when Manning declared that the strike had gone on “long enough.” “This strike has gone on long enough...I have already made an appeal to the company for compromise and I am here to appeal to the workers to compromise,” Manning said. “I am here this evening, not representing the Government of Trinidad and Tobago, but representing the national interest and the national interest dictates this matter be brought to an end expeditiously and a situation of normalcy returns to the construction site,” he added.

And, as if anticipating questions on what action his administration had taken to force Bechtel to return to the bargaining table, Manning said Government had “leaned” on the company. “The Government has leaned heavily on Bechtel and we have done it in a number of ways. We have leaned directly and indirectly because the Government felt that the workers had a point,” he said. “However, that is not to say Government agreed fully with the extent of the demands,” he added. However, the Prime Minister reminded workers of TT’s contractual agreements with the North American gas and oil market, saying this country had contributed 77 percent of the United States’ total LNG imports.

He said that figure was expected to increase due to the LNG plant explosion in Nigeria. And, questioned by workers’ representative Garnet Thompson about when a sectoral minimum wage for heavy construction workers in the energy sector would be approved, Manning said the question was “not relevant” to the present crisis. Thompson, who showed him the latest offer by a sub-contractor, said workers were standing firm in their demands for improved wages.

“We are not returning to work until Bechtel gives us due respect and pays workers what is rightfully due to us,” Thompson said amid cheers by the workers. Meanwhile, president of the striking workers, Ernest Thompson, together with OWTU representatives, was said to be engaged in high-level discussions yesterday at the Port-of-Spain office of Public Administration Minister Dr Lenny Saith. Thompson was reported on a radio station yesterday as saying it was time for Bechtel to pack up and leave this country and that they (Bechtel) were not doing enough to bring an end to the impasse.