Yvonne Webb

Labour Min­is­ter Er­rol McLeod, who one week ago avert­ed a ma­jor strike at state-owned Petrotrin, has again in­ter­vened to stave off any in­dus­tri­al ac­tion, this time at Trinidad Ce­ment Lim­it­ed. The Oil­fields Work­ers' Trade Union (OW­TU) in­di­cat­ed its in­ten­tion to serve strike no­tice on the Clax­ton Bay com­pa­ny if agree­ment was not reached on a wage in­crease by yes­ter­day evening. OW­TU ex­ec­u­tive mem­ber, Chan­der­s­ingh Ram­s­ingh, said the com­pa­ny has re­quest­ed an ex­ten­sion, but vowed, "we are not pre­pared to ex­tend the time.

"If the com­pa­ny does not come up to the union's ex­pec­ta­tion, we will serve strike no­tice," he said. Ram­s­ingh said the union was ask­ing for a 16 per cent in­crease for the five bar­gain­ing units they rep­re­sent, four at the par­ent com­pa­ny in Clax­ton Bay and one at TCL Pack­ag­ing Lim­it­ed. The com­pa­ny is of­fer­ing six-and-one-half per cent. The pe­ri­od in con­tention is 2009 to 2011. Ram­s­ingh said the biggest stum­bling block was wages. "We are flex­i­ble but we are look­ing at dou­ble dig­its," he said. He said there al­so was con­tention over gain-shar­ing.

Ram­s­ingh ex­plained there was a guar­an­teed one per cent in the three years but the com­pa­ny want­ed some vari­a­tion in the third year to which the union was op­posed. "We are hold­ing strong to this guar­an­teed one per cent gain-shar­ing (prof­it-shar­ing). This has noth­ing to do with a gen­er­al in­crease," Ram­s­ingh said. The OW­TU last week served strike no­tice on Petrotrin but was suc­cess­ful in ne­go­ti­at­ing a nine per cent in­crease for work­ers, hours be­fore the shut­down could take ef­fect.