Petrotrin workers have given their representative union, the Oilfields Workers’ Trade Union (OWTU), instructions to institute legal strike action against the state-owned oil company.
The call came as hundreds of workers held a closed-door meeting at the union’s Paramount Building, San Fernando, headquarters yesterday, following a memo from the company it could not increase pay or pay out backpay because of a $364 million net loss it incurred for fiscal 2013/2014.
The union and the company are involved in conciliatory talks with the Ministry of Labour after failed bilateral talks to settle negotiations for six categories of workers in both Petrotrin and its marine branch Trinmar. The company has offered zero per cent.
OWTU president general Ancel Roget said the union had substantially reduced its proposal and was prepared to negotiate downward to find an area where they could settle with the current trends being offered in the country. “But we are not prepared to offer zero,” he said in an interview after the meeting.
Roget said the workers were incensed by the propaganda by the company about its losses. He added: “That is a blatant lie. The company is being disingenuous. “Petrotrin does not sell oil, they sell products. They import crude, they mix that crude with local crude, refine it and produce products and sell it. The difference in the cost of production of that product and what they sell it for is the margin and that is how they make their money.
He said if the CEO of any multi-national company was to tell the public the company was losing money, that CEO would be looking for another job. Roget also sent a warning to Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar, noting she had come to them as opposition leader in 2010 looking for a job as prime minister. “If you are taking away my job and reducing my salary and making sure my members are not given a fair adjustment and you want to destroy the company and therefore my job security, we are prepared to make sure that we interfere with your chances for anymore employment going forward. You can’t get employment and take away mine,” he added.