The Oil­field Work­ers Trade Union has once again raised the alarm over what it claimed to be ram­pant mis­man­age­ment, un­safe work­ing con­di­tions, and cor­rup­tion in the op­er­a­tions of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Elec­tri­cal Com­mis­sion (T&TEC).

The union stat­ed that the sit­u­a­tion at T&TEC has raised se­ri­ous con­cerns about the treat­ment of work­ers, par­tic­u­lar­ly in the lead-up to the Christ­mas sea­son.

“To­day, as we speak, they would have pur­pose­ly, in the most vin­dic­tive way, be­cause they know that all of these ac­tions by the work­ers to high­light these is­sues ren­der them in­com­pe­tent at the man­age­ment lev­el. They would have, this Christ­mas sea­son, short-paid or, in some cas­es, per­haps not paid the work­ers just to get back at them for rais­ing these is­sues,” Ro­get said.

At a press con­fer­ence on Mon­day, OW­TU Pres­i­dent Gen­er­al An­cel Ro­get high­light­ed sev­er­al griev­ances, chief among them the out­sourc­ing of core job func­tions to con­trac­tors.

“The pro­lif­er­a­tion of con­tract work has led to con­trac­tors hav­ing unchecked ac­cess to T&TEC tools, ma­te­ri­als, and fa­cil­i­ties,” Ro­get claimed.

The union warned of po­ten­tial con­se­quences, in­clud­ing work­place ac­ci­dents and pub­lic safe­ty risks, stem­ming from un­reg­u­lat­ed prac­tices.

Ro­get al­leged, “The pref­er­ence of man­age­ment ap­pears to be to pres­sure work­ers in­to ac­cept­ing un­safe con­di­tions, tol­er­at­ing cor­rup­tion in the con­tract sys­tem, and con­ced­ing to the out­sourc­ing of their jobs. None of these is­sues have been ad­dressed. In­stead, T&TEC’s man­age­ment has cho­sen to seek court in­junc­tions to pre­vent work­ers from bring­ing these mat­ters to the pub­lic’s at­ten­tion.”

T&TEC had suc­cess­ful­ly sought a court in­junc­tion to re­strict protests and any form of in­dus­tri­al ac­tion. The union, how­ev­er, said it had not en­gaged in any in­dus­tri­al ac­tion, de­scrib­ing the in­junc­tion as a base­less at­tempt to si­lence them.

Ro­get de­clared, “De­spite the in­junc­tion, work­ers will con­tin­ue their law­ful protests to ex­pose mis­man­age­ment and cor­rup­tion. The in­junc­tion can­not pre­vent work­ers from re­mov­ing them­selves from harm’s way if con­di­tions re­main un­safe.”

Guardian Me­dia at­tempt­ed to con­tact T&TEC’s Cor­po­rate Com­mu­ni­ca­tions De­part­ment for a re­sponse to the claims how­ev­er calls went unan­swered.