Sascha Wilson
Oilfields Workers Trade Union President General Ancel Roget is warning the management of Yara Trinidad Ltd of strike action if they continue to replace permanent employees with contract workers.
Warning that the proliferation of contract workers could lead to fatalities on the job site, Roget said, their issue is not money or negotiations but about lives and limbs and the irresponsibility of management.
Roget was speaking with members of the media at the entrance to the company at Southern Main Road, Point Lisas where he addressed workers on Thursday morning.
Keiron Simmons, OWTU Yara branch assistant president claimed that 60 per cent of the workforce has been replaced by contract workers.
He said this has caused safety issues relating to "life and limb" as the contract workers are not properly trained, resulting in several accidents at the plant.
Earlier this week, he said an unsupervised crane crashed into the gate and a worker suffered lacerations to three fingers.
He added, "This causes a lot of stress on the plant, plant equipment and the personnel. On the plant as well. We trying to alert the nation that this situation can cause catastrophic problems at the site."
Noting that the contract workers were not supplementing but replacing permanent workers, Roget added that wherever there is a proliferation of contract work, there is also corruption. He also criticised the inefficiencies of the regulatory bodies to regulate situations like these and called on the OSH Agency and Authority and the Minister of Labour to intervene to avert a fatality and catastrophic failure at the plant.
Roget also slammed the company’s "blatant disregard" for the Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) that was signed between the company and the union following the one-week strike action in March last year.
He warned the company's president that if action is not taken to protect the workers' jobs and lives, they will escalate their action.
