OWTU says no to retrenchment at Petrotrin

He made the statement as the union arrived at the Industrial Court, St Vincent Street, Port-of- Spain, to resume conciliation talks with the company over the industrial agreement for the years 2011 – 2014.

Roget said the union was reacting to statements made by Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley when he addressed the nation via television on Wednesday night. He said the union wanted to remind the Prime Minister that it was the OWTU which had committed itself to saving Petrotrin by going on the record repeatedly highlighting corruption; inefficiency; mismanagement; political appointments and the placing of people in top positions for which they had neither the qualifications nor competence; paying out hundreds of millions of dollars in benefits to former top executives of the company to which they were not entitled and said all these had contributed to Petrotrin being in the position in which it has found itself. “In other words, if Petrotrin is in problems and facing many challenges today, which challenges has to do outside of the falling price of oil and gas; then it has to do directly with the poor management of Petrotrin throughout the years.” He dismissed as “bleeding hearts” the various “armchair experts” who he said had come out of the woodwork to comment on the five percent interim settlement agreed between the company and the union earlier this week for the period 2011 – 2014, saying they had remained silent when the union was exposing the corruption, mismanagement and other wrongs being done at the company.

He said Petrotrin has been placed in more challenging circumstances because of the failure of past governments to put people in critical operational and technical areas while filling positions in non-core operations which were not central to the company’s business of winning oil and gas. He said the union was clear about what needs to be done to make Petrotrin a profitable company, adding, “nobody will be allowed to take away Petrotrin from the hands of the people of Trinidad and Tobago. When you put it in private hands it goes into the pockets and the bank accounts of the private interests.” Roget said the Prime Minister had missed the mark in his address to the nation and should have said that the country should roll up its sleeves and get down to work with a sharp focus examining all the options for Petrotrin to decide which was the best. He said the union had submitted plans to past and the present governments as well as the former and current prime ministers for the restructuring of Petrotrin into manageable segments.

Saying the company as it existed currently was an unwieldy structure, he said the union’s plan called for the different segments of the company to be split off into separate units.