Rad­hi­ca Sookraj

Con­struc­tion of the fi­nal phase of the Trinidad Gen­er­a­tion Un­lim­it­ed's cy­cling pow­er plant re­mained down for a fourth day yes­ter­day, as La Brea res­i­dents con­tin­ued to block the main en­trance of the Union Es­tate in their quest for jobs. They pre­vent­ed pow­er-plant work­ers and man­agers from get­ting in­to the es­tate, and even chased away mem­bers of the me­dia.

Po­lice manned the gates and of­fered to es­cort the work­ers in­to the plant, but many of them re­fused, say­ing they were afraid of an­ger­ing the pro­test­ers. An­oth­er work­er was heard telling po­lice that they did not care to go in­to the plant to work be­cause "we mon­ey still run­ning."

Pres­i­dent of the La Brea Peo­ple for Progress (LPP), Sean Ed­mund, ac­cused a sub-con­trac­tor on the job of ne­glect­ing the La Brea peo­ple. He said: "Right now we are hold­ing our ground with the hope that some­body in au­thor­i­ty will ad­dress this high lev­el of un­em­ploy­ment. Many of the com­pa­nies on the es­tate are bring­ing peo­ple from out­side to work, even though they promised to hire peo­ple from here."

He said the res­i­dents of La Brea were qual­i­fied and cer­ti­fied, adding, "There is no rea­son why we can't be hired." "We want these com­pa­nies to hire peo­ple from here," Ed­mund said, adding that it was not true that many of the res­i­dents of La Brea cus­tom­ar­i­ly failed drug tests.

He al­so com­plained that rep­re­sen­ta­tives were not do­ing enough to as­sist the un­em­ployed peo­ple. Ed­mund said he and oth­er LPP mem­bers had tra­versed the en­tire es­tate look­ing for jobs. While some com­pa­nies have hired res­i­dents, Ed­mund said Eisen­bau Es­sen (EBE), who are build­ing the pow­er-gen­er­at­ing plant, has made no at­tempt to im­prove its work­force with lo­cal con­tent. He al­so ac­cused Coun­cil­lor Ger­ald De­bisette and MP Fitzger­ald Jef­frey of poor rep­re­sen­ta­tion.

How­ev­er, an of­fi­cial who re­quest­ed anonymi­ty said 60 per cent of all work­ers em­ployed at the plant are from La Brea. He said EBE did not hire staff, but hires lo­cal con­trac­tors, who then hire work­ers. The of­fi­cial said each lo­cal con­tract has a bind­ing agree­ment with EBE to hire res­i­dents of La Brea and en­vi­rons.

An­oth­er com­pa­ny source ex­plained that some of the La Brea res­i­dents can­not be hired un­less they pass the drug tests. He not­ed that the con­struc­tion phase was al­most at an end and on­ly tech­ni­cal staff are be­ing hired. "We do not have va­can­cies for car­pen­try, ma­son­ry and labour­ers be­cause that part of con­struc­tion is over. Right now part of the pow­er plant is in op­er­a­tion.

"We have to be care­ful about who we are bring­ing in­to the plant. If things go wrong, that plant could blow up. We can­not just hire any­body off the street to do tech­ni­cal work. They must be qual­i­fied and ex­pe­ri­enced," the of­fi­cial ex­plained.

He said the com­pa­ny will meet with res­i­dents once De­bisette and Jef­frey are present.