RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

In a des­per­ate act to get their out­stand­ing back­pay be­fore Christ­mas, for­mer work­ers of Lennox Pe­tro­le­um brought their wives and chil­dren to protest yes­ter­day.

As they de­mand­ed that the com­pa­ny pay US$9.5 mil­lion retroac­tive­ly, the work­ers said they want­ed the com­pa­ny of­fi­cials to see the im­pact the strug­gle was hav­ing on their chil­dren.

But the com­pa­ny of­fi­cials stayed in­doors. Some of the chil­dren held up plac­ards which read, “Pay the work­ers to please,” and God doesn’t like wicked­ness.” 

One child car­ried a plac­ard which begged Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley to get in­volved. 

Chief Labour Re­la­tions Of­fi­cer of the Oil­fields Work­er’s Trade Union (OW­TU) Lyn­don Men­doza said the es­ca­la­tion of protest was meant to get the com­pa­ny to pay the work­ers as many of them had mount­ing bills and could no longer sup­port their fam­i­lies.

He de­nied that this was an ex­ploita­tion of chil­dren’s rights.

“This is in pur­suit of jus­tice for the ex-work­ers of Lennox Pe­tro­le­um. The work­ers have brought their fam­i­lies in­clu­sive of their wives and chil­dren to help the pub­lic and the au­thor­i­ties to un­der­stand that this is a re­al is­sue im­pact­ing the lives of work­ers and their fam­i­lies and by ex­ten­sion the com­mu­ni­ty,” he ex­plained.

He not­ed that Rowan Drilling paid monies to Lennox Pe­tro­le­um to pay retroac­tive wages.

“For rea­sons know­ing on­ly to the man­ag­ing di­rec­tor Wayne Per­sad, they have with­held the monies owed to the work­ers. Work­ers went to In­dus­tri­al Court and got a court rul­ing on June 8 which said monies ought to be paid on Sep­tem­ber 30. The com­pa­ny made an un­suc­cess­ful ap­peal for a stay of ex­e­cu­tion of the pay­ment. Judge­ment was de­liv­ered on No­vem­ber 23 and the com­pa­ny had to pay im­me­di­ate­ly. How­ev­er from then to now the com­pa­ny has failed to pay and work­ers have been con­sis­tent­ly protest­ing,” Men­doza said.

He ex­plained that Lennox has to pay $US9 mil­lion in retroac­tive pay­ment.

Men­doza al­so ques­tioned why the au­thor­i­ties have not stood up in de­fence of the work­ers not­ing that the com­pa­ny was in di­rect vi­o­la­tion of the court judge­ment.

“Why is there a deaf­en­ing si­lence from the au­thor­i­ties. Noth­ing from the Min­is­ter of Labour and Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty, noth­ing from the Prime Min­is­ter,” Men­doza said. 

One work­er Do­minic Tou­s­saint said they were tak­ing a risk dur­ing the glob­al pan­dem­ic to protest. 

“Peo­ple are com­ing here from as far as Guayagua­yare, To­co, Ma­yaro and all we want is what is owed to us,” Tou­s­saint said. 

An­oth­er work­er Jones Richard­son said it was time for the gov­ern­ment to in­ter­vene in the strug­gle.

“I am feel­ing it. I find that it is time for the gov­ern­ment to step in be­cause it is im­pact­ing neg­a­tive­ly on my fi­nances, my fam­i­ly and my house build­ing,” he said.

Lennox re­sponds

But in a state­ment, Lennox Pe­tro­le­um said the work­ers’ ac­tions were meant to be in­tim­ida­to­ry say­ing it must be stopped im­me­di­ate­ly.

Say­ing the labour dis­pute lit­i­ga­tion process is on­go­ing, the com­pa­ny said its le­gal team has ap­plied for an in­ter­pre­ta­tion of the court or­der. 

“Since the OW­TU failed to present any ev­i­dence be­fore the Court to de­ter­mine who are the work­ers to which the judg­ment re­lates; how much mon­ey is owed and what is the spe­cif­ic time-pe­ri­od for which the work­ers are claim­ing in­ter­est, the LP­SL le­gal team has tak­en con­crete steps to re­solve the said labour dis­pute am­i­ca­bly.”

The com­pa­ny said it has writ­ten to the OW­TU in good faith on De­cem­ber 8 re­quest­ing a meet­ing fa­cil­i­tat­ed by an In­dus­tri­al Court Judge.

“To date, LP­SL has re­ceived nei­ther a for­mal re­sponse to the let­ter nor a re­quest to meet with the OW­TU, un­der the su­per­vi­sion of an ap­point­ed In­dus­tri­al Court of­fi­cials.

The com­pa­ny said it did not owe US$9.5 mil­lion to protest­ing work­ers. 

Not­ing that the protests in front of the homes of com­pa­ny of­fi­cials was a “form of in­tim­i­da­tion and ha­rass­ment and will in no way to re­solve the said labour dis­pute am­i­ca­bly,” the com­pa­ny fur­ther said, “T&T law pre­scribes the means for the en­force­ment of judg­ments that are not paid.”

“Thus, fail­ure by the OW­TU to put be­fore the court the amounts which they claim to be owed, in the court or­der dat­ed: Wednes­day 8th Ju­ly 2020, can­not be en­forced by the prop­er le­gal means. Thus, in­di­vid­u­als donned in OW­TU brand­ed cloth­ing have tak­en to en­forc­ing the judg­ment by un­law­ful means. These labour protests are il­le­gal and must “cease” im­me­di­ate­ly,” the com­pa­ny added.