Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son@guardian.co.tt

De­spite fac­ing le­gal ac­tion by the Trinidad and To­ba­go Elec­tric­i­ty Com­mis­sion (T&TEC), Oil­field Work­ers’ Trade Union (OW­TU) pres­i­dent gen­er­al An­cel Ro­get says work­ers will not be “bul­lied” by the com­pa­ny and will con­tin­ue protest­ing un­til their is­sues are ad­dressed.

This fol­lows an ex parte ap­pli­ca­tion filed on Sun­day by T&TEC in the In­dus­tri­al Court for an in­ter­im in­junc­tion to pre­vent the work­ers from en­gag­ing in in­dus­tri­al ac­tion.

The in­junc­tion was not grant­ed on that day af­ter the OW­TU gave an un­der­tak­ing that the work­ers would not en­gage in in­dus­tri­al ac­tion. The mat­ter seek­ing in­junc­tive re­lief was ad­journed to No­vem­ber 11.

Dur­ing an emer­gency me­dia con­fer­ence yes­ter­day to ad­dress what he termed an at­tempt by T&TEC to si­lence work­ers, Ro­get said nei­ther the union nor work­ers would be in­tim­i­dat­ed by the com­pa­ny through the court or the po­lice.

Cat­e­gor­i­cal­ly deny­ing that the work­ers had en­gaged in in­dus­tri­al ac­tion, he said they were ex­er­cis­ing their right to peace­ful­ly pick­et out­side of work­ing hours, in­clud­ing be­fore and af­ter work­ing hours and dur­ing lunchtime.

“Protest ac­tion on my own time is not in­dus­tri­al ac­tion. Protest ac­tion that does not af­fect the com­mis­sion­er’s op­er­a­tion is not in­dus­tri­al ac­tion and we urge the work­ers, we in­struct the work­ers, I am go­ing to do it pub­licly, con­tin­ue to not en­gage in in­dus­tri­al ac­tion but how­ev­er, con­tin­ue to en­gage in protest ac­tion which is not in­dus­tri­al ac­tion,” Ro­get said.

Claim­ing the union was un­aware of To­ba­go work­ers en­gag­ing in sick-out ac­tion, he said the work­ers had been re­port­ing for du­ty but refuse to use de­fec­tive com­pa­ny ve­hi­cles, some of which were more than 30 years old and had in­valid in­spec­tion stick­ers.

Giv­ing an up­date on the sit­u­a­tion in To­ba­go via the tele­phone, To­ba­go OW­TU ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer Mar­cus Cord­ner said the tyres are not changed on time, the cab­ins are cor­rod­ed and they would use lad­ders in place of buck­et trucks. He said the trucks would break down on jobs and crews would some­times wait 16 hours for the prob­lem to be re­solved.

Ac­cord­ing to in­for­ma­tion pro­vid­ed by the union, nine out of ten crews were func­tion­al yes­ter­day morn­ing, and at 10.30, two crews were dis­patched when “road-wor­thy trucks be­came avail­able.”

One crew was as­signed to work on the com­pound, a pick­up van was used for the train­ing crew su­per­vi­sor, while oth­er crews re­mained on stand­by await­ing trucks to go out in­to the field.

The union played video clips of a di­lap­i­dat­ed cab­in in a com­pa­ny truck, as Ro­get called on T&TEC to ad­dress these is­sues ur­gent­ly.

“We are call­ing on T&TEC man­age­ment to pro­vide safe road wor­thy ve­hi­cles for the work­ers and stop bul­ly­ing work­ers to op­er­ate un­der un­safe con­di­tions and stop bul­ly­ing work­ers to op­er­ate un­safe, un­road­wor­thy ve­hi­cles and do your job Mr Gen­er­al Man­ag­er and oth­ers as re­quired by law un­der the Oc­cu­pa­tion­al Safe­ty and Health Act to pro­vide safe tools and equip­ment, safe work en­vi­ron­ment, demon­strate du­ty of care to em­ploy­ees, in­stead of try­ing to use the courts to join you in an act of bul­ly­ing the work­ers.”

He said the union met with man­age­ment at their (man­age­ment) re­quest on Sat­ur­day and itemised the is­sues that need to be ad­dressed, but in­stead of ad­dress­ing them, the com­pa­ny went be­hind their back to try to get an in­junc­tion to pre­vent the work­ers from protest­ing.

The com­pa­ny had or­gan­ised the meet­ing fol­low­ing si­mul­ta­ne­ous protests last Thurs­day at the San Fer­nan­do, Port-of-Spain, Ari­ma, Point Lisas and To­ba­go branch­es.

He fur­ther claimed that they were not re­pair­ing the ve­hi­cles as a tac­tic to bring in con­trac­tors to do the job.

In a re­sponse last evening, T&TEC chair­man Rom­ney Thomas said, “T&TEC’s po­si­tion has al­ways been to de­liv­er a safe and re­li­able sup­ply of elec­tric­i­ty and would nev­er ful­fil that oblig­a­tion by plac­ing the lives of its work­ers in jeop­ardy. The fact that crews in To­ba­go failed to re­port for du­ty forced the com­mis­sion to en­gage con­trac­tors to fill the void by this un­law­ful ac­tion. That was one of the mat­ters that prompt­ed the com­mis­sion to seek the In­dus­tri­al Court’s in­ter­ven­tion. Based on our checks, the al­le­ga­tion that the ve­hi­cles are not in good work­ing con­di­tion is with­out mer­it. T&TEC will nev­er­the­less in­ves­ti­gate all mat­ters that have been raised.”

In­dus­tri­al Court or­der against OW­TU

The In­dus­tri­al Court is­sued an or­der on Sun­day bar­ring the Oil­field Work­ers’ Trade Union (OW­TU) from tak­ing in­dus­tri­al ac­tion over health and safe­ty con­cerns at the Trinidad and To­ba­go Elec­tric­i­ty Com­mis­sion (T&TEC).

The or­der was agreed to by the OW­TU fol­low­ing an ap­pli­ca­tion by T&TEC for an emer­gency in­junc­tion against the union.

T&TEC sub­mit­ted sworn af­fi­davits from ex­ec­u­tive mem­bers Sean Giles, Carmela Sar­jeant and Chrisal­ston Belle. The com­mis­sion was rep­re­sent­ed by Vanes­sa Gopaul and Tamilee Bud­hu.

In pe­ti­tion­ing the court for the in­junc­tion, T&TEC ar­gued that the OW­TU staged “un­law­ful in­dus­tri­al ac­tion” on Fri­day and Sat­ur­day which se­vere­ly im­pact­ed its op­er­a­tions as cer­tain work­ers failed to re­port for ros­tered du­ty.

How­ev­er, the OW­TU has main­tained their protests have oc­curred be­fore work and dur­ing the lunch break.

The or­der stat­ed as fol­lows:

PAR­TY NO. 2 (the OW­TU) un­der­takes to the Court that:

I. Par­ty No. 2, whether by its Pres­i­dent, Ex­ec­u­tive and/or mem­bers of the Union who are em­ploy­ees of Par­ty No. 1 (T&TEC) and/or mem­bers of its bar­gain­ing units of at Par­ty No. 1 or oth­er­wise how­so­ev­er, will not com­mence and/or con­tin­ue and/or take any in­dus­tri­al ac­tion what­so­ev­er, or any oth­er form of un­law­ful with­hold­ing of labour;

and II. Par­ty No. 2 will forth­with in­struct mem­bers of the Union who are em­ploy­ees of Par­ty No. 1 and/or mem­bers of its bar­gain­ing units of at Par­ty No. 1 not to ini­ti­ate or par­take in any in­dus­tri­al ac­tion and to re­port for their ros­tered du­ty as re­quired, in ac­cor­dance with the terms of their con­tracts of em­ploy­ment and the gen­er­al law of Trinidad and To­ba­go.

Con­sid­er­ing the OW­TU’s un­der­tak­ing, the court set the case man­age­ment con­fer­ence for No­vem­ber 11.

Fail­ing to up­hold the court’s or­der, the OW­TU faces, con­se­quences.

“If you, the with­in named Par­ty No. 2 be­ing the Oil­field Work­ers Trade Union or any of your mem­bers of how­so­ev­er oth­er­wise known clas­si­fied, des­ig­nat­ed, cat­e­gorised, called and/or de­scribed dis­obey this or­der you will be li­able to process of ex­e­cu­tion for the pur­pose of com­pelling you to obey same,” the or­der said.

OW­TU first vice-pres­i­dent Sati Ga­jad­har-In­nis ap­peared in court. The union was rep­re­sent­ed by at­tor­ney An­tho­ny Bul­lock.

The mat­ter was heard be­fore In­dus­tri­al Court pres­i­dent Heather Seale, vice pres­i­dent Her­bert Sover­all and Michelle Austin.