TT industry killing workers

Addressing a news conference after a meeting with trade union leaders at Opposition Leader Basdeo Panday’s Port-of-Spain office yesterday, Oropouche MP Dr Roodal Moonilal declared, "We take this opportunity to condemn the Government yet again on their outright failure to implement the OSHA to save the lives of workers. What we have is a killing field in the industrial sector, where several enterprises, particularly in the heavy energy sector, are now escaping with corporate manslaughter."

In December 2003, Government and the Opposition agreed to pass the OSHA in Parliament and the Act is currently awaiting the approval of President George Maxwell Richards. Moonilal also claimed that Labour Minister Danny Montano had promised that sections of OSHA would have been implemented by last Sunday (Labour Day), but could not say if this had happened.

Noting that there have been four industrial deaths in the first six months of 2005, Moonilal wondered why no report was ever made public about the circumstances surrounding the death of Shivam Harrylal in a fatal accident at the Industrial Gases Ltd plant in Point Lisas in February. The Oropouche MP also alleged that certain statements and reports into that incident had gone missing.

Speaking in the Senate on June 7, Montano indicated that a gas-cylinder nozzle (a vital clue into the accident which killed Harrylal) had gone missing, investigators were awaiting analyses of metallurigical tests on fragments of the exploding gas cylinder being done at the University of New Mexico and Air Liquid of Paris, France and the probe should be completed by July. Moonilal argued that once OSHA is made law, several measures could be put in place to safeguard workers from industrial accidents. He noted that one of the measures would be regular monitoring of workplaces by the Labour Inspectorate of the Ministry of Labour, Micro and Small Enterprises. The Oropouche MP also indicated that the labour movement was fully supportive of the UNC in the amendment to the Freedom of Information Act 1999, and the Judicial Review (Amendment) Bill 2005.

He said the UNC and the trade unions agreed that these issues are "workplace issues" and the unions will continue to educate workers on both issues in so far as it affects workers’ rights.