Bavi­ta Gopaulchan

Se­nior Re­porter

bavi­ta.gopaulchan@guardian.co.tt

The Steel Work­ers Union of Trinidad and To­ba­go (SWUTT) is warn­ing Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar to learn from the coun­try’s ex­pe­ri­ence with Arcelor­Mit­tal as the for­mer Point Lisas steel plant pre­pares to re­sume op­er­a­tions.

Union pres­i­dent Tim­o­thy Bai­ley told Guardian Me­dia that the union and its mem­bers re­main hope­ful Per­sad-Bisses­sar will take a dif­fer­ent ap­proach from pre­vi­ous ad­min­is­tra­tions and pro­tect the in­ter­ests of the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go.

“The Steel­work­ers Union and its mem­bers at this time re­main hope­ful that the Ho­n­ourable Prime Min­is­ter will do the right thing and op­er­ate dif­fer­ent­ly from the pre­vi­ous ad­min­is­tra­tions,” Bai­ley said.

Bai­ley’s com­ments come af­ter Per­sad-Bisses­sar re­ject­ed the union’s call for a role in the re­open­ing of the plant, say­ing SWUTT is not a stake­hold­er in the new op­er­a­tion and that the com­pa­ny is free to hire any qual­i­fied cit­i­zen.

The Prime Min­is­ter al­so hit back at the union, say­ing it had ten years to take over the plant or find an in­vestor but failed to do so.

The for­mer Arcelor­Mit­tal plant has been idle since 2016. It is now be­ing re­fur­bished by Ibis Steel, backed by US-based Pin­na­cle Steel and Vana­di­um, with plans for a US$750 mil­lion in­vest­ment and up to 1,000 per­ma­nent jobs.

Bai­ley said the Arcelor­Mit­tal ex­pe­ri­ence has taught the union to be cau­tious about for­eign multi­na­tion­al com­pa­nies.

He said the union is look­ing to the coun­try’s lead­ers to pro­tect and ad­vance the in­ter­ests of the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go.