EXPAND THE IRA

Government may have to actively intervene in the ongoing industrial dispute between Bechtel International and striking workers on the Atlantic Train IV project being constructed by Bechtel. It has already intervened passively through its efforts at conciliation, and has clearly failed. Because of the importance of the liquefied natural gas Train IV project, a critical factor in Government’s plans not simply to maintain the current level of economic growth, but to expand it and provide an improvement to the infrastructure and increased health and educational facilities, Government needs to act. We wish to make clear, however, that we are not in any way proposing or suggesting that Government should impose a solution on the parties to the dispute.

Nonetheless, Government can no longer see its role in the dispute as simply that of a facilitator. Instead, it must be prepared to amend the Industrial Relations Act IRA of 1972 to provide for the compulsory recognition of a trade union, with a proven majority status in an industry, to bargain for terms and conditions for contract labour. And as in the case of existing legislation to have matters unresolved by the negotiating process decided upon by the Industrial Court. It was the Industrial Stabilisation Act No 8 of 1965, forerunner to the 1972 IRA, which introduced the principle of providing “for the compulsory recognition by employers of trade unions and organisations representative of a majority of workers, for the establishment of an expeditious system for the settlement of trade disputes....”

The Industrial Court should be able to request information contained in the contract entered into by Bechtel International relative to the terms and conditions of employment of the various categories of workers it determined the project would need to employ. This, we believe will be necessary, as one of the crucial clauses in the IRA — Section 20 (2) (e) “the necessity to preserve and promote the competitive position of products of Trinidad and Tobago in the domestic market as well as in overseas markets.” Last weekend, Bechtel in newspaper advertisements published its offer to striking workers which it had hoped would have seen an end to the nine-week strike and a resumption of work on the multi-million dollar project on Monday.

But workers, standing firm, have dismissed the offer and one of their representatives, Ernest Thompson, has declared that the stoppage would continue until Bechtel met with them. The offer, Thompson charged, represented, in some cases, an increase of 50 and 72 cents. It may be that the increases of 50 and 72 cents are all that Bechtel is allowed under the contract it has with its principals, Atlantic LNG, to construct the Train IV liquefied natural gas plant at Point Fortin. But let this be determined under the umbrella of the Industrial Relations Act expanded to include contract labour on construction projects.