Final day for OWTU and Petrotrin to meet

Roget’s cellphone went to voicemail all day yesterday when Newsday tried to reach him, and so to was the case with the union’s Chief Education Officer, Ozzi Warwick, to elaborate on the new information.

With the final day being today, what was at least confirmed yesterday was that Petrotrin and the union would meet in a last bid to settle the 2014-17 wage negotiation period, in order to stave off strike action. Roget has publicly put the company on notice that if a reasonable settlement from the company’s position of zero-zero-zero percent, is not reached, then notice of strike action would be served on the company tomorrow. He has further warned that a shutdown of the refinery could see gas and diesel shortages, as well as jet fuel.

Petrotrin, based on a memo issued to the company’s top technical management team late Friday afternoon from the company’s president, Fitzroy Harewood, is bracing itself for strike action. The memo requested that the company’s highskilled employees must be notified of pending strike and that even the 4,500 employees working in the refinery must be so informed.

Contacted yesterday, Manager of Corporate Communicatons, Gillian Friday, said that there has been no new developments regarding the state of the negotiations from a company’s perspective.

Throughout the weekend, calls and telephone messages sent to Attorney General Faris Al Rawi, Finance Minister Colm Imbert and Labour Minister Jennifer Baptiste- Primus, went unanswered.

There is the possibility that if the OWTU calls a strike of oil workers at the State-owned Petrotrin, the government can seek an injunction in the Industrial Court.

Yesterday, founder of the Joint Trade Union Movement (JTUM) Vincent Cabrera, said that in a bid to prevent strike action in the oil belt, if today’s talks fails, JTUM would be willing to become that bridge that can bring both the union and the company together, but only if both parties were willing. But despite that offer as a mediator, he expressed solidarity with the OWTU’s position in the negotiations.