Petrotrin, OWTU reach new wage agreement

JUNIOR staff employees together with hourly/weekly-paid employees of State-owned oil company Petrotrin and its Point Fortin-based subsidiary Trinmar Operations, received an early Christmas gift on Wednesday when a new collective agreement was finalised between the Oilfields Workers’ Trade Union (OWTU) and the company’s executive management.

The agreement, which capped several months of intense negotiations, was concluded after another marathon session at the company’s Clifton Hill staff club, Point Fortin, on Wednesday evening. Leading the OWTU’s negotiation team was president general, Errol McLeod, while Petrotrin’s team was led by vice president, human resources, Rawlinson Agard. In a media statement, corporate communications manager Arnold Corneal noted that the agreement covered “Petrotrin’s hourly/weekly employees for the period August 27 2002 to  August 27 2005; junior staff employees of Petrotrin for the period June 01 2002 to May 31 2005; and hourly/weekly employees of Petrotrin Trinmar Operations for the period January 01 2003 to 2006.”

Several key features of the agreement include, “a general wage increase of 13 percent over three years, with five percent in the first year, and four percent in each of the remaining two years; cost of living allowance, (COLA), 14 cents for each one point rise in the index of retail prices; and a variable pay of 15 percent of every dollar in excess of TT$100 million of net audited income after tax.” Also included in the agreement were increases in meal allowances, subsistence allowances, shift bonus, heat bonus and height bonus. The company observed that the negotiations were conducted in “a cordial atmosphere” with the Petrotrin talks being concluded in five months while the Trinmar Operations talks took one year to be resolved. “The company is confident that both parties would work together to achieve the productivity necessary to ensure the company’s growth and success, well into the future,” Corneal stated.

And as to the contentious pension plan issue, OWTU branch president, (Petrotrin), Hollis Alexander, said that the company had agreed to an increase of four percent per year from the time of retirement and retroactive from January 1, 2003. “We are quite happy with the outcome of the negotiations, but we are also disturbed that the settlements were only arrived at after a series of protest action engaged by workers,” he said. However, Alexander noted the union’s commitment to ensuring the profitability of the State-owned oil company in an increasingly competitive market.