ELIZ­A­BETH GON­ZA­LES

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

T&TEC work­ers in To­ba­go are de­mand­ing a meet­ing with the board to ad­dress, what they say are long­stand­ing is­sues re­lat­ed to work­ing con­di­tions and salary ne­go­ti­a­tions. They say if noth­ing is done the elec­tric­i­ty sup­ply on the is­land could be dis­rupt­ed.

The em­ploy­ees be­gan to protest out­side the Scar­bor­ough of­fice from as ear­ly as 6.30 yes­ter­day morn­ing with rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the Oil­fields Work­ers Trade Union (OW­TU) call­ing for bet­ter treat­ment. Speak­ing on be­half of the work­ers, ex­ec­u­tive vice-pres­i­dent of the union, Mar­cas Cord­ner warned that the neg­li­gence of the work­ers could in­ter­fere with op­er­a­tions.

He said, “We are fac­ing a short­age of ve­hi­cles, stalled ne­go­ti­a­tions, poor qual­i­ty test­ing equip­ment, low man­pow­er, and sev­er­al oth­er is­sues. These con­cerns have been raised with man­age­ment on nu­mer­ous oc­ca­sions, but the re­sponse is al­ways, ‘I don’t know,’ or ‘I’ll see what I can do.’”

He claimed that work­ers not on­ly in To­ba­go but across the coun­try are deal­ing with these chal­lenges.

Cord­ner then warned of pos­si­ble in­con­ve­niences to cus­tomers in To­ba­go if these is­sues go un­re­solved.

“We can’t say that we would shut down To­ba­go, but if mis­man­age­ment con­tin­ues and the ‘don’t care’ at­ti­tude from man­age­ment per­sists, then it could prob­a­bly hap­pen, and it wouldn’t be on the backs of the work­ers.

“These is­sues could lead to elec­tric­i­ty dis­rup­tions, and we need every­one to un­der­stand the grav­i­ty of the sit­u­a­tion. While politi­cians claim that T&TEC is go­ing the ex­tra mile, no one sees how much we’ve re­gressed in terms of de­vel­op­ment. Enough is enough,” he said.

He al­so men­tioned that salary ne­go­ti­a­tions have been stalled, with no of­fer from man­age­ment yet. The work­ers called for ur­gent meet­ings and a quick res­o­lu­tion.

“Ne­go­ti­a­tions have been stalled for the last five months, cov­er­ing the pe­ri­od from 2015 to 2020. We want to have meet­ings and hear an of­fer. To date, we haven’t been of­fered any­thing, not even ze­ro.”

Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Mar­vin Gon­za­les could not be reached for com­ment.

T&TEC promised a state­ment on the mat­ter, but up to late yes­ter­day evening, no re­sponse had been sent out.