Blame Colm, says OWTU

OWTU President General Ancel Roget said the union’s proposal would not cost the company “one additional cent” but that proposal was being studied by the Minister of Finance, adding that “whether or not we have a strike, that will be decided by the Minister of Finance. The Minister of Finance is only crunching numbers in some delay strategy, heaven knows what that is, but if we do go into strike some seventeen hours from now, the clock is winding down, it is because of the Minister of Finance’s refusal to respond to what is a very reasonable approach on the part of the union.” Roget charged there was “something else” involved in the issue and said that Imbert needed to tell the country whether the Government had imposed a wage freeze on the nation. He claimed the union had information that people close to the Government stood to benefit from the strike. “There are people who are connected close to the Government who are going to benefit in terms of the importation of fuel at a marked up price which they will sell to the Government and which Petrotrin will have to pay for at the end of the day.” He said this meant that the strike will cost Petrotrin many times more than it will cost to settle.

An OWTU delegation led by Roget met with Petrotrin executives at the Ministry of Labour and Small Enterprise Development from 10 am yesterday but emerged at 5 PM to say that they had not been able to resolve their dispute. Roget said the union was set to begin its threatened strike this morning.

Roget said that it was unprecedented that the company had failed to respond positively to a proposal “where for monies we have already earned, we are saying on the basis of a company increasing its production and revenue, it is only then we will be able to be paid that money. In other words, you owe me money, but I am going to work with you to increase your revenue for you to be able to pay me that money that you owe me and that is very reasonable.” He said the Minister of Finance had all the figures related to the dispute with Petrotrin since August last year but he had continued to “dabble” with them until the present crisis. He said the union had already completed its strike camps and would occupy them this morning and wondered why the Minister of Finance was provoking a strike that would cost Petrotrin enormous sums of money.

Roget said the Petrotrin delegation did not bring anything new to yesterday’s talks and the union had told them to go back and talk to those who claimed to have the authority to give direction to the negotiating team. After yesterday’s day long meeting at the Ministry of Labour and Small Enterprise Development, the union delegation and the Petrotrin team headed to the Industrial Court for additional talks with Roget saying that depending on what happened at the court they were supposed to meet back at the Ministry of Labour for further discussions. “We are giving every single opportunity in all of the institutions, both at the ministry and at the court, to see if we can find resolution to these issues.

And at this point we feel that we have given enough, monies that you owe me from six years ago, monies that I have already worked for, I am telling you that I am going to do some productivity bargaining for you to pay me that money and you are still refusing.

Well he wants a strike.” He also questioned the absence from the talks of the acting Minister of Energy, Imbert, who is acting for Franklin Khan, who is ill.

Roget said the union did not need to speak to the Minister of Finance but that the minister responsible for energy ought to have been at the talks because he was the line minister responsible for energy “and if the minister responsible for energy affairs does not have interest in energy affairs as those energy affairs relate to Petrotrin, well then something has to be wrong with that.” He claimed it was a grave error in judgement to give the energy portfolio to the Minister of Finance because he was unable to be objective while dealing with the energy matters and the finance matters because he will be “cutting and contriving in most areas and the whole situation will be compromised.

I think he is totally confused, that fella, Minister of Finance, but that confusion will be compounded tomorrow morning (today) when every single Petrotrin worker walks off his or her job. We commit to that if we didn’t get a settlement.

And, of course, we also commit to telling that story throughout the length and breadth of the country – even in Tobago – we would want to start very, very early, launch our own campaign in Tobago to let the Tobago people know that promises never materialised.