The Oilfields Workers’ Trade Union (OWTU) is claiming political victimisation after its Trinmar branch president, Ernesto Kesar, was fired for being absent from work for just over four hours without permission on October 17. Kesar, who was a supervisor in the Procurement and Materials Department at Petrotrin’s Marine facility at Trinmar, Point Fortin, was served with a dismissal notice on Wednesday.
The letter, signed by Petrotrin’s vice-president, human resources and corporate services Keith Ramnath, goes into effect on November 17. Kesar, who has over 20 years service with the company, was already on an unpaid five-day suspension since November 10 for holding union meetings on the company’s premises. He also was served a warning notice prior to the suspension for breaching the company’s rules to hold union meetings on the premises.
Kesar contested the La Brea seat in 2010 on a People’s Partnership (PP) ticket but lost to the People’s National Movement’s (PNM) Fitzgerald Jeffrey. He withdrew his support for the party along with the Movement for Social Justice (MSJ) when they pulled out as a coalition partner. OWTU president general Ancel Roget addressed concerned Trinmar workers at the union’s New Lands, Point Fortin, offices yesterday. The workers had demanded to know why their president was fired and who would be next.
Roget told the workers to unite and be prepared to make sacrifices because they were going all out to challenge the injustice. “This was done to spite Kesar,” an irate Roget told workers, while assuring them the union will challenge the dismissal and the worker will be restored to his position. He added: “It cannot be business as usual at Trinmar. You cannot fire the president of the Trinmar branch and expect the workers to come out and work. They are threatening our job security, they are threatening our families. “We must be prepared to make certain sacrifices. We must be prepared to use whatever means necessary which is within our rights. We must be prepared to go to Port-of-Spain and march.” Attempts to contact Kesar were unsuccessful as calls to his cellphone went unanswered.
Assault on OWTU
In an interview with the T&T Guardian afterwards, Roget said Kesar had requested the time to deliver some letters in Port-of-Spain. Roget explained: “The reason they fired him, and they could not state this, is because he embarrassed them when he pointed out (in a letter to the Minister of Energy) that the management failed to deal with the issues of marine transportation and ensuring proper boats are in place to take workers offshore safely and that the contractor continues to hold the company at ransom.
“They could not fire him in the execution of his duty under the Industrial Relations Act as a union officer, so they say he was absent without permission. “They feel they could intimidate the rest of the workers. They feel they can silence any dissenting voice of anybody who stands up to speak out against them as they continue with their corruption and so on.”
Saying that Kesar was fired with the full knowledge of the Cabinet and the Petrotrin board, Roget warned that there would be a high political price to pay come election 2015. Union members are expected to gather outside the Pointe-a-Pierre administration building at Petrotrin today, to protest Kesar’s firing and demand his reinstatement.