Yvonne Webb

Mem­bers of the Oil­fields Work­ers' Trade Union (OW­TU) turned ta­bles on their for­mer leader, Labour Min­is­ter Er­rol Mc Leod, when they mount­ed a protest to fast track out­stand­ing ne­go­ti­a­tions out­side the T&TEC South­ern Area of­fice yes­ter­day morn­ing. The dis­grun­tled work­ers, led by cur­rent Pres­i­dent An­cel Ro­get, marched around T&TEC's Cipero Street of­fice in San Fer­nan­do, clap­ping and chant­i­ng: "Mc Leod in his of­fice hid­ing, hid­ing from work­ers." Asked about this about turn against the man who schooled him in trade union­ism, Ro­get skirt­ed the is­sue, re­mark­ing in­stead that the work­ers were frus­trat­ed.

Warn­ing that ap­pro­pri­ate ac­tion will be tak­en if the is­sues are not set­tled fair­ly and just­ly, Ro­get sig­nalled the OW­TU's in­ten­tion to start the "Car­ni­val at The Trinidad and To­ba­go Elec­tric­i­ty Com­mis­sion (T&TEC)." He ex­plained that the strug­gle mount­ed yes­ter­day, and ex­pect­ed to con­tin­ue through­out all of T&TEC's op­er­a­tions, was to send a pow­er­ful mes­sage to the gov­ern­ment that they have no in­ten­tion of ac­cept­ing the ze­ro per­cent of­fer cur­rent­ly on the ta­ble. "These work­ers protest­ing here would have much rather been on the job deal­ing with the re­li­a­bil­i­ty of the sup­ply of elec­tric­i­ty. Be­cause of the ig­nor­ing of the work­ers' plight in re­spect of a new col­lec­tive agree­ment, the work­ers have come out here to demon­strate," Ro­get said.

He ex­plained that the last col­lec­tive agree­ment ex­pired on De­cem­ber 31, 2008. "What is in­struc­tive is that over that pe­ri­od, (2008 to present), the work­ers pro­vid­ed a re­li­able sup­ply of elec­tric­i­ty to the coun­try, re­spond­ing to all emer­gency calls, light­ing ar­eas that were dark and con­tribut­ing to the crime and crim­i­nal sit­u­a­tion. "Ne­go­ti­a­tions start­ed May 6 last year with the old Board. Two years and two months in­to a new pe­ri­od, we have a new Board, the line Min­is­ter has changed, but the ap­proach is the same. "We are say­ing that it is time work­ers are treat­ed fair­ly and just­ly and that the Board and the Com­mis­sion come to the ta­ble with an of­fer that is wor­thy. Ze­ro on the ta­ble we will not ac­cept." Ro­get said he was dis­ap­point­ed with Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Em­manuel George.

"We had a lot of ex­pec­ta­tions from this Min­is­ter of Pub­lic Util­i­ties. We are very dis­ap­point­ed with the ap­proach tak­en." He sug­gest­ed: "This is a good op­por­tu­ni­ty for him to em­brace the in­put and pro­duc­tiv­i­ty of all the work­ers and di­rect the Board of T&TEC to en­sure that these is­sues are set­tled once and for all. They have had enough time in of­fice to look at the work­ers' plight and en­sure that these is­sues come to a speedy and ac­cept­able res­o­lu­tion."