SHAL­IZA HAS­SANALI

Oil­field Work­ers’ Trade Union (OW­TU) pres­i­dent gen­er­al An­cel Ro­get has ad­mit­ted his union is in no po­si­tion to buy Petrotrin’s bil­lion-dol­lar re­fin­ery but says this is a ruse as the Gov­ern­ment al­ready has a pur­chas­er in mind.

His com­ments came hours af­ter Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley, in a tele­vised ad­dress to the na­tion on Sun­day, of­fered the OW­TU first chance at ac­quir­ing the re­fin­ery fol­low­ing Gov­ern­ment’s de­ci­sion last week to shut down its op­er­a­tions.

Yes­ter­day, Ro­get de­clared an all-out war on the Gov­ern­ment against the treat­ment met­ed out to the work­ing class and unions.

“We must be pre­pared to fight to the bit­ter end com­rades,” Ro­get told union lead­ers who walked with him to the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter in St Clair to de­liv­er a let­ter to the PM seek­ing an ur­gent meet­ing with him.

If the work­ers fail to pre­pare, Ro­get said the Gov­ern­ment will send out their at­tack­ers against them.

“A war has been de­clared against work­ers in T&T… the work­ers and its unions must re­spond. And our po­si­tion is if you and my en­e­my is fight­ing... the on­ly life I have here and about is mine. We don’t care about Dr Row­ley’s po­lit­i­cal life. We care about the sur­vival of the peo­ple and work­ers in this coun­try.”

Ro­get said Row­ley drew first blood and he now has to re­spond.

Yes­ter­day, the OW­TU was joined by sev­er­al union lead­ers at the Na­tion­al Union of Gov­ern­ment and Fed­er­at­ed Work­ers’ Union head­quar­ters in Port-of-Spain, where they signed a let­ter dat­ed Sep­tem­ber 3 ad­dressed to Row­ley ask­ing that they meet and dis­cuss the im­pend­ing clo­sure of the Petrotrin re­fin­ery and con­tin­u­ing re­trench­ment of work­ers.

“We wish to re­mind you that these ac­tions are in di­rect con­tra­ven­tion of agree­ments on Au­gust 23, 2017 and Sep­tem­ber 13, 2017, which in­clud­ed in­ter alia the fol­low­ing, a mora­to­ri­um on re­trench­ment un­til De­cem­ber 31, 2017 and that any new con­sid­er­a­tion of re­trench­ment must be brought to the Na­tion­al Tri­par­tite Ad­vi­so­ry Coun­cil be­fore any fi­nal de­ci­sion is made by the Gov­ern­ment,” Ro­get said in read­ing out some of the con­tents of the let­ter.

Ro­get said such a move was un­ten­able and an un­de­mo­c­ra­t­ic sit­u­a­tion, say­ing it marked the dawn of a dif­fer­ent era.

The let­ter was signed by Ro­get, Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent Wat­son Duke, Na­tion­al Union of Gov­ern­ment Fed­er­at­ed Work­ers pres­i­dent gen­er­al James Lam­bert, T&T Farm­ers Union pres­i­dent Shi­raz Khan, Amal­ga­mat­ed Work­ers’ Union pres­i­dent Michael Pren­tice, Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Work­ers’ Union gen­er­al sec­re­tary Clyde El­der, Sea­men and Wa­ter­front Work­ers Trade Union pres­i­dent Michael An­nisette, T&T Reg­is­tered Nurs­es As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent Idi Stew­art, Postal Work­ers Union pres­i­dent David Forbes, Fire Ser­vice As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent Leo Ramkissoon, In­ter-Is­land Truck­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion of T&T pres­i­dent Wazir Ali and Bank­ing In­sur­ance Gen­er­al Work­ers’ Union rep­re­sen­ta­tive An­ton Baron.

The union lead­ers, un­der the watch­ful eye of armed po­lice of­fi­cers, walked to Row­ley’s of­fice from the NUGFW head­quar­ters, where the let­ter was de­liv­ered to Row­ley’spro­to­col of­fi­cer Kirk Fran­cois.

Re­spond­ing to Row­ley’s ad­dress to the na­tion on Sun­day night, Ro­get said the coun­try was faced with a lot of de­ceit.

“I want to say we can­not trust this Gov­ern­ment and its Prime Min­is­ter. They are sim­ply not cred­i­ble,” he said.

He said the OW­TU had been vin­di­cat­ed be­cause they have main­tained “the plan is to sell the peo­ple’s as­sets…the re­fin­ery and it came out quite clear last night in this sort of a back­hand kind of a roost telling the union that we have the first op­tion to buy the re­fin­ery. “

Ro­get said, “To pur­chase a re­fin­ery that costs bil­lions of dol­lars, he (Row­ley) knows very well we will not do that. His plan is to say if you all can’t buy it we will get some­body to buy it. ... Wait and see T&T who will come for­ward to pur­chase this re­fin­ery. They have al­ready short­list­ed some­body…their friends to pur­chase this re­fin­ery.”

He ques­tioned why the PM went with one con­sul­tant’s rec­om­men­da­tion on the re­fin­ery’s clo­sure and not get a sec­ond or third opin­ion.

In go­ing for­ward, Ro­get said a de­bate on the re­fin­ery should take place in Par­lia­ment and for a pub­lic in­quiry in­to the op­er­a­tions of Petrotrin.