What is Govt doing?

Yesterday, president general of the Oilfields’ Workers Trade Union Ancel Roget served a strike notice to Petrotrin president Fitzroy Harewood announcing the disgruntled workers’ intention to begin the strike come next Monday __ the start of the new school term.

At a press conference at the Office of the Opposition Leader in Portof- Spain, Persad-Bissessar had a burning question for the government to answer.

“Why was there no meeting of the Government and the workers? Why did not the Government intervene prior to discussions with the workers involved? Why has Petrotrin reached where it has reached. I would not want to intervene in the Petrotrin issue. We have seen a breakdown in the collective bargaining process when Government gave a unilateral decision as to what should be the wage increase with not just Petrotrin but for the entire public sector, and Finance Minister (Colm Imbert) mentioned 0-0-0.” She said if the Government had continued its action against former executive chairman Malcolm Jones perhaps $2 million would have been recovered. Petrotrin had sued Jones for US$109 for the World Gas-to-Liquids (GTL) project.

However, the lawsuit was discontinued.

She said Petrotrin today has monies owing that would come into effect for about $14 billion.

Persad-Bissessar, however, still holds out hope that Government and the workers could come to some agreement before the latter take drastic action and cripple the company by way of a protracted strike.

“I think the crisis could have been averted but there is still time to avert the crisis, and let’s hope good sense prevails on both sides.

Government has scheduled a meeting with the Labour Minister within this four-day window that they have been given, and we will see where those discussions go, but is not today that this issue arose.

Before we even reached here steps could have been taken.

She then hit the government’s handling of the country’s affairs since assuming office in September 2015. “We have to ask whether Government could have taken money squandered elsewhere and been able to pay the workers, not just at Petrotrin, but elsewhere. The economy is no longer at a standstill, it is plunging down the cliff and going down, down, down. No plan, programme or project has been announced to deal with recession in Trinidad and Tobago, to deal with the uplifting of the economy, to deal with the creation of jobs.

“The devaluation of the TT$ is staring us straight in the eye. The value of TT$ to the US$ on the black market was $13 and the Government is not addressing this situation.