KEVON FELMINE
kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

Al­though util­i­ty work­ers' role will be crit­i­cal as the coun­try goes on two weeks of par­tial lock­down, T&TEC work­ers may stay away from work if the man­age­ment does not ac­cede to COVID-19 safe­ty poli­cies the com­pa­ny es­tab­lished with the Oil­fields Work­ers' Trade Union (OW­TU).
On Fri­day, Joint Trade Union Move­ment leader An­cel Ro­get com­mit­ted to Gov­ern­ment's mea­sures to con­tain the spread of the pan­dem­ic virus, even urg­ing his mem­bers to fol­low the ad­vice of pub­lic health ex­perts. 
But in yes­ter­day's me­dia con­fer­ence at Para­mount Build­ing, San Fer­nan­do, OW­TU ex­ec­u­tive vice pres­i­dent Pe­ter Burke said T&TEC's man­age­ment was putting work­ers at risk. Should any work­ers con­tract the virus, he said this would jeop­ar­dize the State's con­tain­ment ef­forts.
Burke said that on March 26, the OTWU and T&TEC man­age­ment agreed to re­duce the num­ber of con­tact hours work­ers had with the pub­lic. It was al­so agreed up­on to re­duce staff and the work crews on a shift. There­fore, crews would be put on a two-week ro­ta­tion.
Burke ex­plained that if an em­ploy­ee un­know­ing­ly con­tracts the virus dur­ing his or her two-week ro­ta­tion and spreads it to his col­leagues, when their ro­ta­tion ends, he or she would be home in self-quar­an­tine for two weeks. Dur­ing this off-time, symp­toms may de­vel­op but the em­ploy­ees would not risk the health of oth­er crews.
If any crew is quar­an­tined, Burke said that more of than half of T&TEC's crews are on stand­by. How­ev­er, he said that af­ter the OW­TU in­formed the work­ers of the new mea­sures, T&TEC's man­age­ment re­neged and im­ple­ment­ed a one week-ro­ta­tion.
"It is a very dif­fi­cult con­ver­sa­tion to have but the pos­si­bil­i­ty ex­ists that it can hap­pen. Hence, this is the rea­son why we're try­ing to work with the Com­mis­sion to en­sure we have enough crews on stand­by in a worst-case sce­nario. 
"The work­ers have a choice, they have a re­spon­si­bil­i­ty. They have a du­ty to pro­tect them­selves. This union, fought for, won, fought again to have poli­cies and we've been fight­ing to have it man­aged prop­er­ly in the work­place. Un­der the OSH Act, work­ers have the right to refuse work in un­safe con­di­tions. The Com­mis­sion is con­fus­ing the work­force and they are not pro­tect­ing the work­force," Burke said.
He said PPE re­mains an is­sue at T&TEC and while lines­men are not ad­e­quate­ly sup­plied with fire-re­tar­dant suits, the ma­jor is­sue was the lack of gloves and masks for the work­ers who are in­ter­act­ing with the pub­lic.
Guardian Me­dia con­tact­ed T&TEC's gen­er­al man­ag­er Kelvin Ram­sook, who said he would get back to us on the mat­ters dis­cussed as it was a del­i­cate sit­u­a­tion.