OWTU assures no electricity outage for Christmas

RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj

@guardian.co.tt

Days af­ter T&TEC ob­tained an ex­tend­ed in­junc­tion to pre­vent pick­et­ing, the Oil­field Work­ers Trade Union (OW­TU) is deny­ing al­le­ga­tions of any im­pend­ing in­dus­tri­al ac­tion.

Pres­i­dent Gen­er­al An­cel Ro­get, yes­ter­day, as­sured that the elec­tric­i­ty sup­ply will re­main re­li­able dur­ing the Christ­mas sea­son if T&TEC pro­vides the nec­es­sary tools and equip­ment.

Speak­ing dur­ing a press con­fer­ence, Ro­get said the in­junc­tion ob­tained by T&TEC threat­ens the union with de­cer­ti­fi­ca­tion and im­pris­on­ment for its ex­ec­u­tives if it is vi­o­lat­ed.

Ro­get in­sist­ed that work­ers are not en­gag­ing in in­dus­tri­al ac­tion. “It’s in­junc­tion af­ter in­junc­tion while the un­der­ly­ing is­sues are not be­ing ad­dressed and that will lead to cat­a­stroph­ic fail­ure and fa­tal­i­ties, the likes of which we don’t want to see,” Ro­get said.

He not­ed that T&TEC’s fleet of trucks was de­fec­tive.

“When tragedy hap­pens then peo­ple sit up and take no­tice. We are see­ing the tragedy in the mak­ing be­cause peo­ple do not have the req­ui­site ma­te­ri­als and tools to work,” he added.

Ro­get al­so claimed that T&TEC work­ers were forced to work ex­tra time and dou­ble shifts.

“You have peo­ple do­ing high volt­age work and they are fa­tigued,” Ro­get al­leged. He al­so claimed that un­trained and un­qual­i­fied con­trac­tors were be­ing brought to do work.

“We call for an in­quiry in­to the cor­rupt con­tract sys­tem that is al­lowed to con­tin­ue at T&TEC. Why it is that you are not fol­low­ing pro­ce­dures? Why do you have work­ers do­ing over­time? Over­time is a symp­tom of poor man­age­ment but I am not sure the Min­is­ter will in­ves­ti­gate that,” Ro­get said.

Mean­while, OW­TU Vice Pres­i­dent Reesa Ram­lo­gan-Jod­ha high­light­ed sev­er­al health and safe­ty con­cerns. She com­plained about garbage ac­cu­mu­la­tion at the Dis­tri­b­u­tion Cen­tral in Point Lisas Gar­dens, which she said has at­tract­ed ro­dents and snakes.

“Our crews have to in­ter­act with that heap when they go to put ma­te­ri­als. We al­so have crim­i­nals go­ing to that area,” she claimed.

She al­so ac­cused T&TEC of breach­ing the col­lec­tive agree­ment re­lat­ed to work­er health and safe­ty.

“Man­age­ment is bul­ly­ing work­ers in­to work­ing with ex­pired per­mits be­cause they have failed to have re­train­ing of op­er­a­tors of lift trucks. An un­trained dri­ver is a recipe for dis­as­ter. One can mis­read sig­nals, that is death be­cause these are high-ten­sion wires,” she said.

She al­so com­plained about de­fec­tive trucks and tools and in­suf­fi­cient per­son­al pro­tec­tive equip­ment.

“The man­pow­er au­dit has gone through the door be­cause there is a need for more man­pow­er. We have in the sub­sta­tions, trans­form­ers that are leak­ing oil in­to the wa­ter­ways. We have un­trained con­trac­tors work­ing on our sys­tems. Ac­ci­dents be­ing cov­ered up,” Ram­lo­gan-Jod­ha al­leged.

She al­so echoed Ro­get’s de­nial of in­dus­tri­al ac­tion and em­pha­sised the union’s con­cerns about un­safe work­ing con­di­tions. When con­tact­ed for com­ment via What­sApp, Min­is­ter of Pub­lic Util­i­ties Mar­vin Gon­za­les de­clined to ad­dress the con­cerns.

“I have no views. Did you ask them whether it is ap­pro­pri­ate to go to a Min­is­ter’s home to ha­rass his fam­i­ly and trau­ma­tise a peace­ful com­mu­ni­ty? If I can’t get an­swers to that or if the me­dia is not in­ter­est­ed in that, then I have no com­ments,” he wrote.

Ear­li­er this week, the In­dus­tri­al Court grant­ed T&TEC an ex­ten­sion to the in­junc­tion, first or­dered on De­cem­ber 2, against the OW­TU which pre­vents the union from pick­et­ing the homes of var­i­ous of­fi­cials of T&TEC. On No­vem­ber 8, work­ers protest­ed out­side Gon­za­les’s home in Ari­ma.

The in­junc­tion was grant­ed to “pre­vent fur­ther acts of un­law­ful in­dus­tri­al ac­tion” by the union.