An­cel Ro­get, vir­tu­al­ly un­chal­lenged as Oil­fields Work­ers’ Trade Union (OW­TU) pres­i­dent gen­er­al since 2008, is one of the most in­flu­en­tial fig­ures in the lo­cal labour move­ment. His in­flu­ence ex­tends be­yond his po­si­tion in one of the coun­try’s old­est and most pow­er­ful trade unions to the three labour con­fed­er­a­tions — the Joint Trade Union Move­ment (JTUM), the Na­tion­al Trade Union Cen­tre (NTAC), and the Fed­er­a­tion of In­de­pen­dent Trade Unions (FI­TUN).

From that ex­alt­ed po­si­tion, he has of­ten spo­ken out on a range of na­tion­al is­sues, usu­al­ly as one of the loud­est voic­es on mat­ters re­lat­ed to in­dus­tri­al re­la­tions and pol­i­tics.

The lat­est source of con­tention for Mr Ro­get is an amend­ment to the In­dus­tri­al Re­la­tions Act (IRA) which gives the Liq­uid Fu­el Com­pa­ny of T&T (LFCTT) the es­sen­tial ser­vice des­ig­na­tion.

This move by Gov­ern­ment is not sur­pris­ing giv­en the cru­cial role of LFCTT, a sub­sidiary of Na­tion­al Pe­tro­le­um Mar­ket­ing Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed (NPMC), in pro­vid­ing fu­el se­cu­ri­ty for the coun­try.

The com­pa­ny op­er­ates and man­ages a fa­cil­i­ty de­signed to hold a sev­en-day re­serve of mo­tor fu­els and a 10-day re­serve of Jet A1 fu­el, so it plays an es­sen­tial role in pre­vent­ing dis­rup­tions and the re­sult­ing fall­outs.

Mr Ro­get sees things dif­fer­ent­ly, how­ev­er, and has con­demned the move as an at­tack on his union and work­ers in gen­er­al.

The amend­ment to the IRA ef­fec­tive­ly blocks the OW­TU’s ap­pli­ca­tion to the Reg­is­tra­tion, Recog­ni­tion and Cer­ti­fi­ca­tion Board to rep­re­sent LFCTT work­ers, as it al­ready rep­re­sents work­ers from an­oth­er es­sen­tial ser­vice, T&TEC.

That is why he is call­ing for Op­po­si­tion and In­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors to ap­ply to have the amend­ment an­nulled.

In­ter­est­ing­ly, Mr Ro­get’s lat­est gripe with the Dr Kei­th Row­ley ad­min­is­tra­tion — a Gov­ern­ment he reg­u­lar­ly ac­cus­es of be­ing an­ti-work­er — has to do with an amend­ment to labour leg­is­la­tion.

Mr Ro­get did have an op­por­tu­ni­ty to di­rect­ly in­flu­ence the draft­ing of laws and pol­i­cy de­vel­op­ment when he and oth­er trade union­ists sat on the Na­tion­al Tri­par­tite Ad­vi­so­ry Coun­cil (NTAC) with gov­ern­ment and pri­vate sec­tor rep­re­sen­ta­tives.

It was an op­por­tu­ni­ty for tri­par­tite en­gage­ment, with the lev­el of di­a­logue and con­sul­ta­tion that could have pro­mot­ed con­sen­sus build­ing on is­sues of so­cial jus­tice, an­ti-dis­crim­i­na­to­ry prac­tices, and em­pow­er­ment that should have been em­braced by the labour move­ment.

There could have been huge ben­e­fits from a prop­er­ly func­tion­ing na­tion­al tri­par­tite body but there has been no chance of that since March 2021, when JTUM, NATUC and FI­TUN with­drew from NTAC.

Mr Ro­get claimed then that NTAC was lit­tle more than a “sur­rep­ti­tious plan to si­lence, and get rid of trade union move­ments,” which is al­most iden­ti­cal to his lat­est ac­cu­sa­tions about the IRA amend­ment.

This re­flects the deeply en­trenched pat­terns of be­hav­iour and val­ues of T&T’s trade union lead­ers, who have not evolved to keep pace with rapid changes in the labour mar­ket.

On the is­sue of amend­ments to the IRA, as with so many ar­eas of dis­agree­ment in in­dus­tri­al re­la­tions, di­a­logue is the best route to find that elu­sive mid­dle ground. How­ev­er, Mr Ro­get and his col­leagues have stub­born­ly re­fused to re­turn to the NTAC ta­ble for their best chance of in­form­ing and in­flu­enc­ing pol­i­cy.

Work­ing to achieve con­sen­sus, rather than re­sort­ing to the usu­al con­fronta­tion­al ap­proach, could have yield­ed re­sults. How­ev­er, that doesn’t seem to be a method favoured by T&T’s labour lead­ers.