KEVON FELMINE

Se­nior Re­porter

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

The Oil­fields Work­ers Trade Union (OW­TU) wants for­mer Petrotrin work­ers and their fam­i­lies to con­verge on Irv­ing Street, San Fer­nan­do, from 9 am next Wednes­day as the union bat­tles Petrotrin in the In­dus­tri­al Court.

Pres­i­dent Gen­er­al An­cel Ro­get is call­ing on At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Regi­nald Ar­mour to in­struct Petrotrin to with­draw its ap­peal of a court rul­ing in favour of the ter­mi­nat­ed work­ers.

At a meet­ing at Guaracara Park, Pointe-a-Pierre, yes­ter­day, Ro­get said the for­mer work­ers earned ben­e­fits, in­clud­ing pen­sion and med­ical plans, dur­ing their tenure at the State-own oil com­pa­ny, which guar­an­teed them life­time cov­er­age. How­ev­er, he claimed Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley and his Gov­ern­ment took them away by shut­ting down Petrotrin in No­vem­ber 2018.

The union filed a claim against the com­pa­ny in the In­dus­tri­al Court and won the mat­ter, but the court said it was pow­er­less to block the shut­down of the en­er­gy com­pa­ny. How­ev­er, Petrotrin ap­pealed the court rul­ing last year. It comes up for hear­ing on De­cem­ber 3.

“The union filed all of these mat­ters on time. In fact, in record time and be­cause of that, all of these mat­ters are alive and be­fore the court to­day. Whether those mat­ters per­tain­ing to tem­po­rary work­ers and their un­fair treat­ment of tem­po­rary work­ers be­cause they ought to have been com­pen­sat­ed prop­er­ly, re­tires and their med­ical plan, ben­e­fits and all of those mat­ters,” Ro­get said.

He said Ar­mour, who rep­re­sent­ed Petrotrin in the mat­ter, was now the AG.

“All of us should de­mand, in one clar­i­on call, that this At­tor­ney Gen­er­al in­struct Petrotrin to with­draw this ap­peal, so your mat­ters can be heard and you will have your day in court,” Ro­get said.

Not­ing that the for­mer work­ers re­main no longer have a med­ical plan, he added: “Ap­par­ent­ly, they wish all of us to die so there would not be a mat­ter by the time you come be­fore the court.”

For­mer OW­TU Trin­mar Branch Pres­i­dent Ernesto Ke­sar said the union raised sev­er­al is­sues at the In­dus­tri­al Court fol­low­ing Petrotrin’s clo­sure. Ke­sar said the trade dis­putes deal with the uni­lat­er­al vary­ing of the med­ical plan and oth­er ben­e­fits. It came af­ter the court ruled in favour of the OW­TU on No­vem­ber 19, 2018, re­gard­ing cri­te­ria for re­hir­ing, com­pa­ny loans, al­lowances and suc­ces­sor­ship.

“These mat­ters re­fer to the ter­mi­na­tion. They re­fer to the non-pay­ment of ca­su­al work­ers of their ben­e­fits. It refers to in­cor­rect cal­cu­la­tions and pen­sion ben­e­fits. In all these mat­ters, these peo­ple ap­plied to be stayed, so we can have an­oth­er five years again for more peo­ple to die,” Ke­sar said.

Ro­get de­mand­ed that Trinidad Pe­tro­le­um Hold­ings Ltd chair­man Michael Quam­i­na re­open all med­ical cen­tres and sport­ing fa­cil­i­ties.

Cen­tres in For­est Re­serve, Pe­nal, San­ta Flo­ra, Guayagua­yare, Point Fortin and Pointe-a-Pierre are di­lap­i­dat­ed. Ro­get said for­mer Petrotrin doc­tors pledged to care for for­mer work­ers should the med­ical fa­cil­i­ties re­open.

He said the Pa­lo Seco Velo­drome, which host­ed the Pa­lo Seco Games, and Guaracara Park, home of the South­ern Games, were spaces for young peo­ple to en­gage in sport­ing ac­tiv­i­ties and for na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment.

“All of us who would be­lieve that they would sup­port the Prime Min­is­ter be­cause he looks like you, and be­cause you are PNM, you would sup­port him to take away your ben­e­fit from you? He de­nies you your ben­e­fit. He goes away for med­ical at­ten­tion, and the on­ly thing they main­tain is the golf course for him to come and play on and to hell with you all and every­thing else,” Ro­get said.