Most of the na­tion­al work­force re­ject­ed the call by the main labour unions to stay off the job yes­ter­day. Teach­ers were the main sup­port­ers, as their union strong­ly en­cour­aged them to join the day of rest and re­flec­tion.

Peo­ple across the coun­try were con­cerned about the im­pact such a call would have on ac­tiv­i­ties in both the pub­lic and busi­ness sec­tor. As it turned out, their worst fears were not re­alised.

From all the re­ports, it ap­pears that more peo­ple turned out for work than the unions ex­pect­ed. Chief among them was the work­ers of Petrotrin, who the Oil­field Work­ers' Trade Union urged the rest of the coun­try to sup­port in their hour of anx­i­ety.

It was clear from ear­ly morn­ing that thou­sands of work­ers were head­ed to the job since the traf­fic at key gate­ways in­to Port-of-Spain and San Fer­nan­do showed a small re­duc­tion in the usu­al hus­tle.

Many par­ents, how­ev­er, kept their chil­dren at home in the face of the ex­pect­ed no-show by teach­ers since few want­ed to face the prospect of tak­ing them to school and then re­ceiv­ing a call to pick them up again.

New Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Gary Grif­fith had his sec­ond test in com­mand, fol­low­ing the earth­quake, to prove that his men and women were up to the task of pro­tect­ing and serv­ing the na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty. Their union made it clear quite ear­ly that they would not be shirk­ing their re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to the na­tion­al pop­u­la­tion.

The test for the Gov­ern­ment was to ral­ly pub­lic ser­vice, not just to re­ject their union's call but to re­spond to the ear­ly morn­ing ap­peal from Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley to put coun­try first.

But yes­ter­day's events have not served to solve any­thing, since some 24 hours ear­li­er Gov­ern­ment and the unions failed to come to a mu­tu­al­ly ac­cept­able agree­ment on the Petrotrin re­fin­ery clo­sure.

An­cel Ro­get may have ap­peared to be less pas­sion­ate in de­liv­er­ing a re­port to his mem­ber­ship, but it was clear that no progress was made. A sim­i­lar re­port em­anat­ed from the Gov­ern­ment min­is­ters who held a si­mul­ta­ne­ous press con­fer­ence.

So what is next?

The re­al­i­ty is that all the par­ties are in a tight po­si­tion and there is no re­al mid­dle ground to suf­fice ei­ther par­ty. So in spite of the raised voic­es across the di­vide, the fu­ture of the re­fin­ery ap­pears to be a fore­gone con­clu­sion.

The ex­perts have weighed in and deemed that a busi­ness de­ci­sion had to be made and that Gov­ern­ment had lit­tle choice in the cir­cum­stances. The work­ers and their rep­re­sen­ta­tives dis­agree and ar­gue that the com­pa­ny was poor­ly man­aged in the first place and they are the vic­tims. We are go­ing to be read­ing the Petrotrin sto­ry for a good while, and we can on­ly hope that it will even­tu­al­ly have a hap­py end­ing.