The Oilfields Workers’ Trade Union (OWTU) is calling for the removal of T&T Electricity Commission (T&TEC) chairman Sushilla Ramkissoon-Mark while the probe into the purchase of a $26,000 chair is ongoing. The chair was purchased for the T&TEC boardroom table on the fourth floor of Stanley Potter Building, Mt Hope.
“The chairman knew very well and in fact occupied that chair, sat on that chair for one year and now there is an attempt to get at employees,” OWTU president general Ancel Roget told the Guardian in an interview at the OWTU’s San Fernando headquarters yesterday. “We will not stand idly by and allow employees to be made scapegoats in that matter. The corruption has been identified, they ought to take responsibility for that and in that regard we call for the removal of the chairman of T&TEC while a proper investigation continues.”
OWTU’s second vice president Peter Burke also accused T&TEC management of misrepresentation of the facts of the matter to Public Utilities Minister Nizam Baksh and called for disciplinary action to be taken.
“I have some concerns as a union officer and an employee of T&TEC that I think the national community was misled: (a) by saying they didn’t know where the chair was and it was common knowledge where the chair was; and (b) to try to, in fact, blame other people for the purchase and non-return of the chair when, in fact, they were simply following instructions by senior management to acquire the chair.
“In this regard the misrepresentation of the facts to the line minister and members of the public, I think there is ground for some sort of disciplinary action.” Responding to statements made by Baksh during Thursday’s post-cabinet conference, Burke took issue with what he described as a “a very veiled and open threat” to the T&TEC workers.
Burke said two workers, a foreman and an administrative assistant, who are in the OWTU bargaining unit, have been put in a very difficult position. He said there were documents to prove that the senior management knew about the chair and the workers were merely carrying out instructions. “So you would understand then why the union is absolutely astounded by the minister’s statement that there may be disciplinary action regarding a the fact that the chair was not returned and so on.”
Baksh had said that the matter has been referred to the T&TEC’s internal audit division for an investigation and a report is expected in a week.
Roget talks tough ahead of McLeod meeting
Oilfields Workers’ Trade Union leader Ancel Roget is making his position and demands clear even as he heads to a meeting today on Petrotrin’s decision to end his secondment. “I have not returned, I will not return and I continue to dare them to fire me,” said a defiant Roget in an interview with reporters at OWTU’s headquarters in San Fernando yesterday.
Asked whether he will be attending today’s meeting with Labour Minister Errol McLeod and Petrotrin management, Roget said: “We will go but we are uncompromising in that regard, and we are not prepared to succumb to Petrotrin.” He said: “We demand an apology in the highest order, an unqualified apology from the top management of Petrotrin and a retraction of that letter and of course an immediate confirmation and approval of that leave of absence to do union business that we had applied for since in November of last year.”
Roget, along with first vice president Carlton Gibson and chief industrial relations officer John Boisselle, were issued a legal letter by Petrotrin advising them to return to work or lose all of their benefits. Asked about Petrotrin’s claim that one of the union members has returned to work, he said that was not true.
“The chief labour relations officer would have gone into Petrotrin and applied for his annual vacation leave for five weeks—consistent with the entitlement that he would have had with the company in that regard, but the first vice president Carlton Gibson and myself, we are standing our ground, we are top officers of the OWTU and we will not be returning.”