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alexk
Guest
Oilfields Workers’ Trade Union (OWTU) president general Ancel Roget has summoned his blue shirt army to the Prime Minister’s official residence in St Ann’s on August 26 where they will kneel and pray for Petrotrin and T&T.
Warning that Petrotrin was on the brink of disaster, Roget called on all workers of the State-owned oil and gas company to mobilise while addressing them in front the company’s Pointe-a-Pierre Refinery on Monday evening.
“A Sunday, or an evening, we going to kneel down and pray in La Fantasie. We are going to pray for Petrotrin, for the jobs of the workers. We are going to pray for Trinidad and Tobago. We going to pray for God to give the correct people to run Petrotrin. We are going to pray for the right thing to happen. Sunday, August 26 put your house in order, not a working day, nobody could discipline you. You have the power in your hands use it. All Petrotrin workers, Sunday, August 26, at 3 pm, travel to Port-of-Spain, maxi, taxi, bicycle, scooter, bus, CRV, donkey, horse whatever transport you use, find yourself at La Fantasie at the residence of the Prime Minister.”
Roget said if Petrotrin’s chairman Wilfred Espinet is not removed he will be making an announcement on the way forward.
“It is time for us to enjoy the fruits of our labour. Stand up and fight because nobody will fight for you. Come out in your blue. Roget said Petrotrin’s Board was focused on sending workers home and has no plan to rescue the company which is in crisis.
“We hear they are starving the (the company’s) hospital of basic supplies, no food, no milk, no basic necessity to run the kitchen and there are a significant number of vacancies so the hospital is sick, it needs a hospital right now.”
He said the company and union had signed an agreement to divide the company into four sections within an 18-month period.
“Four divisions, hospital, refinery, land operations, Trinmar. Each one under separate management but accountable to the board of directors. Out of that, you can then charge the various management for the responsibility for all of those divisions, we agreed on that.”
However, he said five months from that 18-month period have gone and nothing has been done.
Calling on workers fight back, he said, “On social media, they paying people to blog, to put misinformation and target Petrotrin workers. For far too long we remained quiet and took all the nonsense, for far too long, we have the capacity to respond but we remained silent.”
He said a comprehensive financial audit report for last year’s financial year, put Petrotrin’s total operating cost at $20.8 billion while the salary and benefits cost was at $2.3 billion which worked out to 11 per cent of the operating cost.