In the face of the strike no­tice is­sued by the Oil­fields Work­ers Trade Union (OW­TU) yes­ter­day, Trinidad Ce­ment Ltd TCL in­sist­ed that the com­pen­sa­tion pack­ages for its unionised work­ers were cur­rent­ly among the best in the coun­try. The com­pa­ny said that the an­tic­i­pat­ed strike no­tice was served on TCL by the OW­TU at ap­prox­i­mate­ly 11 am yes­ter­day. The com­pa­ny main­tains that in all its de­lib­er­a­tions on the mat­ter, it has of­fered the most fair and prac­ti­cal pro­pos­als, notwith­stand­ing the com­pa­ny's fi­nan­cial po­si­tion at this crit­i­cal time of its progress as it strives to re­build dur­ing a de­pressed glob­al econ­o­my and ex­treme­ly slowed re­gion­al con­struc­tion in­dus­try.

In a state­ment fol­low­ing its re­ceipt of the strike no­tice, TCL said the ev­i­dence of its con­tention of the com­pet­i­tive na­ture of its com­pen­sa­tion pack­ages for its unionised work­ers could be found in the sig­nif­i­cant num­ber of al­lowances and ben­e­fits avail­able to em­ploy­ees, apart from base pay. Prof­it shar­ing, clink­er, ce­ment, HSE in­cen­tive bonus­es and a gain-shar­ing scheme are ex­am­ples. TCL is fo­cused on cre­at­ing val­ue for all its stake­hold­ers, prime of which are its em­ploy­ees, cus­tomers, share­hold­ers and fi­nanciers. The com­pa­ny stands open to con­tin­ued and un­prej­u­diced di­a­logue to­wards quick set­tle­ment of this sig­nif­i­cant mat­ter.