A warn­ing has been is­sued to the Oil­fields Work­ers’ Trade Union (OW­TU) Pres­i­dent Gen­er­al An­cel Ro­get to com­ply with the in­junc­tion T&TEC ob­tained from the In­dus­tri­al Court.

This fol­lows Thurs­day’s press con­fer­ence where Ro­get de­nied that work­ers were en­gaged in in­dus­tri­al ac­tion but crit­i­cised the com­mis­sion for is­sues such as de­fec­tive trucks, in­ad­e­quate tools, in­suf­fi­cient PPE, ex­pired work per­mits, lack of train­ing for lift truck op­er­a­tors, un­trained con­tract work­ers, ac­ci­dent cov­er-ups, and man­pow­er short­ages.

He al­so ex­pressed con­cern over the in­junc­tion, which he said threat­ens the union with de­cer­ti­fi­ca­tion and jail time for ex­ec­u­tives if breached.

Re­spond­ing to the union leader’s com­ments, T&TEC yes­ter­day de­scribed Ro­get’s com­ments as “un­for­tu­nate,” ad­vis­ing the OW­TU to com­ply with the in­junc­tion.

“The com­mis­sion is mind­ful that this is a mat­ter that is cur­rent­ly be­fore the In­dus­tri­al Court and it will pre­fer to have this mat­ter ven­ti­lat­ed in that fo­rum. How­ev­er, the OW­TU’s ir­re­spon­si­ble and false al­le­ga­tions, if left unan­swered, may con­fuse work­ers and lead them in­to er­ror.”

T&TEC stat­ed that it sought the in­junc­tion to en­sure com­pli­ance with em­ploy­ment con­tracts, the Col­lec­tive Agree­ment, and the laws of T&T.

“This is to pre­vent the con­tin­u­a­tion of in­dus­tri­al ac­tion in any form, in­clu­sive of the un­law­ful with­hold­ing of labour,” T&TEC said.

Re­ject­ing claims that the court is be­ing used to si­lence the union, T&TEC said, “The In­dus­tri­al Court re­ceived ev­i­dence from the com­mis­sion and the union and it heard ar­gu­ments from both par­ties. The In­dus­tri­al Court then ex­er­cised its in­de­pen­dent ju­ris­dic­tion and dis­cre­tion to grant the in­junc­tion against the OW­TU. Any and all sug­ges­tions that the Court is be­ing ‘used’ to si­lence the union are re­ject­ed and strong­ly con­demned by the com­mis­sion.”

T&TEC al­so reaf­firmed its com­mit­ment to work­er safe­ty, not­ing, “The safe­ty of our work­ers is our para­mount con­cern. We will treat with these is­sues im­me­di­ate­ly if any ex­ist so as not to en­dan­ger the safe­ty of the work­ers or the pub­lic.”

Re­gard­ing con­cerns raised by Ro­get about de­fec­tive ve­hi­cles and work­place con­di­tions, T&TEC stat­ed, “The com­mis­sion has re­peat­ed­ly de­scribed its in­ter­nal process­es for treat­ing with HSE con­cerns, de­fec­tive ve­hi­cles, dis­pos­al of scrap util­i­ty ma­te­ri­als, and oth­er staffing mat­ters. There are stan­dard op­er­at­ing pro­ce­dures that en­sure that man­age­ment treats is­sues in a time­ly man­ner and that work­ers can op­er­ate in a safe en­vi­ron­ment to pro­vide a high lev­el of ser­vice.”

The com­mis­sion al­so as­sured the pub­lic of re­li­able elec­tric­i­ty ser­vice dur­ing the Christ­mas sea­son, stat­ing, “There are no planned out­ages card­ed for the Christ­mas sea­son.”

It again called on the OW­TU to com­ply with the court or­der, stat­ing, “We sin­cere­ly hope that the union abides by the terms of the in­junc­tion. It is our du­ty and re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to en­sure that our cus­tomers re­ceive a safe and re­li­able sup­ply of elec­tric­i­ty.”