Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

Have pa­tience.

That was the mes­sage from Labour Min­is­ter Leroy Bap­tiste to the pop­u­la­tion yes­ter­day.

Bap­tiste was speak­ing in the Sen­ate as he pi­lot­ed and con­clud­ed de­bate on the Mis­cel­la­neous Pro­vi­sions (Her­itage Pe­tro­le­um, Paria Fu­el Trad­ing and Guaracara Re­fin­ing Vest­ing) (Amend­ment) Bill, 2026.

The bill con­firms the suc­ces­sor­ship of Her­itage Pe­tro­le­um Com­pa­ny Ltd and Paria Fu­el Trad­ing Com­pa­ny Ltd in re­la­tion to col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing rights ne­go­ti­at­ed be­fore Petrotrin’s re­struc­tur­ing.

It en­sures that col­lec­tive agree­ments con­tin­ue to have le­gal ef­fect de­spite the trans­fer of Petrotrin’s op­er­a­tions to Her­itage and Paria.

The leg­is­la­tion al­so al­lows recog­ni­tion of the Oil­fields Work­ers’ Trade Union (OW­TU) as the recog­nised ma­jor­i­ty union rep­re­sent­ing for­mer Petrotrin work­ers to con­tin­ue in both com­pa­nies for col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing pur­pos­es. Guaracara Re­fin­ing was ex­clud­ed as the com­pa­ny’s fu­ture re­mains un­re­solved.

The bill is retroac­tive to De­cem­ber 1, 2018, fol­low­ing the ces­sa­tion of Petrotrin’s op­er­a­tions on No­vem­ber 30, 2018.

It was passed with the sup­port of Gov­ern­ment sen­a­tors and six In­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors.

The Op­po­si­tion Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM), along with In­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors Dr Mar­lene Attzs, Can­dice Jones-Sim­mons and Fran­cis Lewis, ab­stained from vot­ing.

Bap­tiste said the bill sought to en­sure work­ers did not lose bar­gain­ing pro­tec­tion and rep­re­sen­ta­tion be­cause of what he de­scribed as the PNM’s “cor­po­rate de­struc­tion ex­er­cise” in­volv­ing Petrotrin.

Thank­ing the Prime Min­is­ter, he said the leg­is­la­tion ful­filled her di­rec­tive.

“It em­bod­ies her vi­sion where labour rights are safe­guard­ed, so­cial jus­tice is ad­vanced and work­ers are guar­an­teed fair­ness and dig­ni­ty,” he said.

Bap­tiste said work­ers “saw a good time” un­der the pre­vi­ous Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) ad­min­is­tra­tion, dur­ing which more than 143 col­lec­tive agree­ments were con­clud­ed.

He said the cur­rent UNC ad­min­is­tra­tion had re­ject­ed the four and five per cent wage in­creas­es im­posed dur­ing the PNM’s tenure on pub­lic sec­tor work­ers and had in­stead sought to im­prove those set­tle­ments through agree­ments reached since tak­ing of­fice.

“All well over four per cent,” he said.

Bap­tiste ar­gued that the Gov­ern­ment had in­her­it­ed ten years of un­re­solved labour is­sues.

“The present UNC Gov­ern­ment had to deal with ten years of PNM tenure where work­ers re­ceived noth­ing­ness, dis­re­spect and aban­don­ment of the bar­gain­ing process,” he said.

“So now this ad­min­is­tra­tion is faced with try­ing to fix that and bar­gain­ing pe­ri­ods out­stand­ing. That’s what we’re faced to fix—that’s the dif­fi­cul­ty. It’s dif­fi­cult. We know that.

“Yes, we could have done the easy things where they want to just keep peo­ple in make-work pro­grammes, their sup­port­ers go­ing nowhere fast. That’s a sad state of af­fairs. Some­body had to stop it.”

He said it had fall­en to the Prime Min­is­ter to ad­dress those is­sues.

“And we’ll fix it. It would take some pa­tience on the pop­u­la­tion’s part. There are those who’ll try to stir all kinds of fake out­rage when they kept peo­ple for more than 10 years with­out even an in­crease.”

“For ten years peo­ple re­ceived noth­ing and we un­der­stand that they’re des­per­ate, but we’re on­ly in of­fice for just over one year. They had ten; they gave you noth­ing. We’ve start­ed the giv­ing, the tak­ing care of per­sons with sus­tain­able jobs and good pay, and I as­sure you brighter days are ahead.”

Ac­knowl­edg­ing the chal­lenges fac­ing the ad­min­is­tra­tion, Bap­tiste added: “We’re not here to do that which is easy; we’re here to do that which is dif­fi­cult ... cre­ate sus­tain­able jobs.”

Not­ing that the bill came two days be­fore Labour Day, he said it re­flect­ed the work­ing class’s strug­gle to ad­vance its in­ter­ests.

“I await to see who’ll stand against the work­ing class on Labour Day eve,” he added.

Bap­tiste said the Gov­ern­ment’s work­ers’ agen­da did not sup­port the PNM’s make-work pro­grammes, which he claimed pro­vid­ed no job se­cu­ri­ty, and said the ad­min­is­tra­tion was bring­ing them to an end.

Bap­tiste slams PNM over ‘union bust­ing’

Not­ing the OW­TU’s pres­ence in Par­lia­ment yes­ter­day, Bap­tiste praised the union, de­scrib­ing it as Trinidad and To­ba­go’s first of­fi­cial­ly reg­is­tered trade union and one of the strongest in the coun­try and the Caribbean.

He ar­gued that the PNM’s re­struc­tur­ing of Petrotrin had been “an af­front to OW­TU’s pow­er and im­pact.”

Bap­tiste said the need for the leg­is­la­tion arose be­cause the pre­vi­ous ad­min­is­tra­tion had omit­ted pro­vi­sions from the vest­ing leg­is­la­tion that would have pre­served work­ers’ rights.

He said the leg­is­la­tion failed to ad­dress the con­tin­u­a­tion of col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing rights or the OW­TU’s le­gal cer­ti­fi­ca­tion.

“This omis­sion de­nied OW­TU statu­to­ry recog­ni­tion in these suc­ces­sor com­pa­nies de­spite con­ti­nu­ity of op­er­a­tions. It was an at­tempt at union bust­ing—to leave work­ers in the suc­ces­sor com­pa­nies with­out ad­e­quate rep­re­sen­ta­tion and pro­tec­tion,” he said.

Re­spond­ing to con­cerns raised by In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor Court­ney Mc­Nish, who called for sim­i­lar leg­is­la­tion to pro­tect all unions and not just the OW­TU, Bap­tiste said the Gov­ern­ment was com­mit­ted to end­ing “union bust­ing.”

“We’ll con­sid­er your ad­vice, but we have to start some­where and we start with the OW­TU—the first union in Trinidad and To­ba­go,” he said.

The bill is sched­uled to be de­bat­ed in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives to­day.