Richard Lord

Chair­man of state-owned Pe­tro­le­um Com­pa­ny of Trinidad and To­ba­go (Petrotrin) Lind­say Gillette says the nine per cent in­crease in the salaries of some 5,000 em­ploy­ees will cost $271 mil­lion. He re­vealed that at a news con­fer­ence at the com­pa­ny's Queen's Park West of­fice yes­ter­day, hours af­ter the two sides reached an agree­ment.

En­er­gy and En­er­gy Af­fairs Min­is­ter Kevin Ram­nar­ine said he was hap­py that the strike was called off. He said the en­tire na­tion could now move for­ward and en­joy the Car­ni­val cel­e­bra­tions. Labour Min­is­ter Er­rol McLeod, mem­bers of the OW­TU and com­pa­ny of­fi­cials reached agree­ment short­ly be­fore noon yes­ter­day af­ter a marathon 96 hours of ne­go­ti­a­tions.

Gillette said the com­pa­ny had put aside the mon­ey to en­sure agree­ment was reached. "To be frank, Petrotrin was very well pre­pared," Gillette in­sist­ed. The OW­TU had served strike no­tice to the com­pa­ny and it was to take ef­fect to­day. Asked what caused such a speedy set­tle­ment, Gillette said: "It was best for the com­pa­ny in com­ing to a set­tle­ment im­me­di­ate­ly be­cause we re­al­ly don't want a strike at this point in time."

He added: "When you looked at the amount of mon­ey we would have lost in a strike ver­sus what we will achieve over the next three or four months, it is bet­ter we just (set­tle) and go for­ward." He al­so said the need to set­tle was based on the high in­ter­na­tion­al oil prices cur­rent­ly. "You had to make an eco­nom­ic de­ci­sion and the best eco­nom­ic de­ci­sion at that point in time was to set­tle and go for­ward," Gillette said.

He said the com­pa­ny had to en­sure there was no strike at the com­pa­ny dur­ing Car­ni­val. He said the strike no­tice was with­drawn. He said the out­come was a vic­to­ry for the en­tire coun­try. Petrotrin's vice-pres­i­dent, Plan­ning and Projects, Khalid Has­sanali, said the agree­ment pro­vid­ed for a salary in­crease of one per cent in­crease in the first year; two per cent in the sec­ond and six per cent in the third.

He said the agree­ment al­so pro­vid­ed for the con­sol­i­da­tion of Cost of Liv­ing Al­lowance in the first year. He said the agree­ment pro­vid­ed for a ten per cent in­crease of oth­er al­lowances, in­clud­ing, height, shift and heat. Oth­er mat­ters agreed to in­clude:

• the re­ju­ve­na­tion of the ap­pren­tice pro­gramme;

• fill­ing of sev­er­al tem­po­rary ap­point­ments; and

• pay­ment of sev­er­ance/gra­tu­ity to tem­po­rary work­ers over the age of 55.