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.