GAIL ALEXAN­DER

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

Hours af­ter trade union lead­ers said there was a “pos­si­bil­i­ty” that they could work with UNC po­lit­i­cal leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar to help cit­i­zens of the coun­try, some Point-a-Pierre branch mem­bers of the Oil­field Work­ers’ Trade Union (OW­TU) walked side by side with UNC mem­bers and can­di­dates, cam­paign­ing in Mara­bel­la.

On Mon­day morn­ing, OW­TU and Joint Trade Union Move­ment (JTUM) leader An­cel Ro­get said a part­ner­ship be­tween the labour move­ment and the UNC had not been ruled out. He spoke af­ter de­liv­er­ing a let­ter to the Fi­nance Min­is­ter seek­ing im­prove­ments to the con­di­tions af­fect­ing cit­i­zens. Ro­get said a let­ter re­gard­ing what was sent to Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert was al­so sent to UNC and Op­po­si­tion Leader Per­sad-Bisses­sar.

Hours lat­er on Mon­day evening, some OW­TU mem­bers in their trade­mark blue jer­seys were seen walk­ing with UNC can­di­date Kern Ramd­hin in the Mara­bel­la East/Pointe-a-Pierre area.

The UNC is seek­ing to hold that dis­trict, which Ramd­hin rep­re­sents, in its bid to win the San Fer­nan­do City Cor­po­ra­tion.

UNC of­fi­cials said the OW­TU mem­bers were from the Pointe-a-Pierre branch which in­volved work­ers from the for­mer Petrotrin re­fin­ery, which was shut down in 2018. Yes­ter­day, speak­ing by tele­phone, the UNC’s Pointe-a-Pierre MP David Lee said there was no “arrange­ment” as such with OW­TU.

But Lee added, “OW­TU’s Pointe-a-Pierre branch mem­bers like any­one else from Mara­bel­la are wel­come to walk with us. Their pres­ence has in­deed been wel­come and in my opin­ion, it sends a mes­sage that they, like the rest of T&T, are tired of this PNM Gov­ern­ment. They’d par­tic­u­lar­ly be so hav­ing suf­fered from the re­fin­ery’s clo­sure.”

OW­TU ‘s Chief Ed­u­ca­tion and Re­search Of­fi­cer Ozzi War­wick said the de­vel­op­ment did not come as a shock to him.

“I’m not sur­prised that for­mer Petrotrin re­fin­ery work­ers are giv­ing sup­port to PAP can­di­dates. They, their fam­i­lies and so many thou­sands of oth­ers ex­pe­ri­enced job loss and are still out of work be­cause of the PNM and Dr Row­ley’s clo­sure of the re­fin­ery,” he said.