RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Ten­sion brewed out­side the T&TEC build­ing in San Fer­nan­do on Thurs­day morn­ing as work­ers, ac­com­pa­nied by a live­ly rhythm sec­tion, gath­ered to voice their op­po­si­tion to man­age­ment's pro­posed re­struc­tur­ing of staff.

Christo­pher Pe­ters, Branch Sec­re­tary of the Oil­field Work­ers Trade Union (OW­TU), led the charge, de­nounc­ing the move that would see work­ers from San Fer­nan­do re­lo­cat­ed to Point Fortin and Rio Claro.

Pe­ters em­pha­sised that this de­ci­sion is dis­rupt­ing the lives of 2,800 em­ploy­ees, brand­ing T&TEC man­age­ment as in­con­sid­er­ate.

"We are out here be­cause we are left with no choice," Pe­ters de­clared. "We have been serv­ing the pub­lic with­out any is­sues, but for some rea­son, since the OPR (The Of­fice of Pro­cure­ment Reg­u­la­tion) came in, we're hav­ing prob­lems get­ting our ve­hi­cles re­paired. We're hav­ing In­dus­tri­al Re­la­tions is­sues. Right now, they are try­ing to do a re­struc­tur­ing. It has not been ac­cept­able to the work­ers, and they are hav­ing is­sues."

De­spite ef­forts to en­gage in di­a­logue with man­age­ment, Pe­ters claimed there was a lack of con­sid­er­a­tion shown by T&TEC of­fi­cials.

"We wrote to the man­age­ment var­i­ous let­ters ask­ing for con­sid­er­a­tion," he ex­plained. "The man­age­ment just went ahead with­out hav­ing dis­cus­sions and placed peo­ple in var­i­ous ar­eas and in­struct­ed them that they have to go. These are se­ri­ous is­sues. We had a meet­ing, and they said they would have in­di­vid­ual in­ter­views with them to see if they could ac­com­mo­date these work­ers. This has not been done thus far."

With the sched­uled shift changes ex­pect­ed to be im­ple­ment­ed on Thurs­day, Pe­ters said ten­sions among work­ers reached a boil­ing point. "To­day they are sup­posed to im­ple­ment this shift change, but as you can see, the work­ers are in­censed. They have reached their lim­its," Pe­ters ex­pressed. "We are emer­gency work­ers, main­te­nance work­ers, con­struc­tion, and cler­i­cal work­ers. We are see­ing a lot of chal­lenges with the way this is be­ing man­aged."

Amid con­cerns about the prac­ti­cal­i­ties of the pro­posed changes, Pe­ters un­der­scored the im­pact on work­ers' dai­ly lives.

"Peo­ple set their lives ac­cord­ing to their salaries and place­ments. You are up­set­ting their lives. Some peo­ple have been placed more than once. This is not be­ing ac­cept­ed," he as­sert­ed.

With frus­tra­tion mount­ing and pleas for in­ter­ven­tion echo­ing, Pe­ters was asked whether there was a pos­si­bil­i­ty of elec­tric­i­ty dis­rup­tions if griev­ances re­mained un­ad­dressed.

"I can't speak about that or say if there will be dis­rup­tions. We have been out here for two weeks be­tween 6 am and 7 am, but we are not be­ing heard, so we are now forced to re­sort to this," he warned.

As the protest con­tin­ued, Pe­ters em­pha­sized the ur­gency of the sit­u­a­tion. "We need some kind of in­ter­ven­tion. It can­not be that they put a sys­tem in place, and we are un­der pres­sure by the sys­tem. We can­not get sim­ple things like bulbs for the trucks. Re­pairs are tak­ing long," he lament­ed.

Guardian Me­dia has reached out to T&TEC's com­mu­ni­ca­tions de­part­ment and we are await­ing a com­ment.

How­ev­er, Min­is­ter of Pub­lic Util­i­ties Mar­vin Gon­za­les said he was not aware of a T&TEC re­struc­tur­ing plan.

He added: "Did the union pro­duce ev­i­dence of this? If they are mak­ing the as­ser­tion, should they not be asked to sub­mit proof of what they are say­ing?"

He added: "TTEC, like all oth­er pub­lic bod­ies, con­tin­ue to work close­ly with the OPR to en­sure that pro­cure­ment rules are com­plied with. If those rules are breached, then it is the same union that will call for man­age­ment to be sanc­tioned or re­moved." He al­so said the as­sign­ment of staff is a mat­ter for the man­age­ment of TTEC, adding, "There is no place for the Min­is­ter to get in­volved in man­age­ment's busi­ness."