RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

In a blow to the Oil­field Work­ers’ Trade Union (OW­TU), Shaf­fick Hy­atali, a ded­i­cat­ed and tire­less ad­vo­cate for work­ers’ rights, has suc­cumbed to the COVID-19 virus.

Hy­atali de­vot­ed his en­tire life to the cause of work­ers, leav­ing an in­deli­ble mark dur­ing his tenure as sec­re­tary of the OW­TU’s Pointe-a-Pierre branch from 2000 to 2012.

At his fu­ner­al on Mon­day, OW­TU flags flew over his cas­ket, a sym­bol of the union’s re­spect and grat­i­tude for his life­long ser­vice.

In the eu­lo­gy, Hy­atali’s on­ly daugh­ter, Fari­ah, moved mourn­ers to tears as she re­count­ed her fa­ther’s jour­ney, in­clud­ing his 35 years in the oil in­dus­try, his en­cy­clo­pe­dic knowl­edge of the re­fin­ery’s op­er­a­tions and his abil­i­ty to ex­plain in­tri­cate de­tails of the var­i­ous plants.

She said Hy­atali start­ed as a labour­er at Tex­a­co and re­tired as a ma­te­r­i­al an­a­lyst in the Ma­te­ri­als De­part­ment at Petrotrin.

Rem­i­nisc­ing about his thirst for knowl­edge, ex­cite­ment about em­brac­ing new tech­nolo­gies to man­age the com­pa­ny’s in­ven­to­ry, and com­mit­ment to the re­fin­ery’s smooth op­er­a­tions, Fari­ah said her fa­ther was a metic­u­lous note­tak­er, pre­serv­ing every de­tail of the OW­TU’s his­to­ry.

“He was well known for mak­ing his car trunk the union’s fil­ing cab­i­net, his work of­fice. The branch hall and our home in­ad­ver­tent­ly be­came the archives of the OW­TU. He built a room to store all the min­utes, col­lec­tive agree­ments, In­dus­tri­al Court doc­u­ments and his note­books,” she said.

She re­called how he al­ways wore his blue shirt as a sym­bol of his un­wa­ver­ing com­mit­ment to work­ers’ rights and could as­sess a per­son’s loy­al­ty to the union with a sin­gle glance.

She said he was al­so a ded­i­cat­ed schol­ar who pur­sued stud­ies in In­dus­tri­al Re­la­tions and Me­di­a­tion Stud­ies at the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies’ School of Con­tin­u­ing Stud­ies and the Cipri­ani Labour Col­lege.

“His great­est joy was found in help­ing oth­ers se­cure per­ma­nent em­ploy­ment and pro­tect­ing work­ers from un­just dis­missals through the col­lec­tive pow­er of the union,” she said.

Fol­low­ing the clo­sure of Petrotrin, Hy­atali found so­lace in his faith as a de­vout Mus­lim.

“He ac­tive­ly con­tributed to the growth and suc­cess of the mosque as a com­mit­tee mem­ber,” she added, not­ing he al­so made a sig­nif­i­cant con­tri­bu­tion on his com­mu­ni­ty.

Fari­ah said she will al­ways re­mem­ber her fa­ther’s chant, “For­ward ever, back­ward nev­er!”