Min­is­ter of Labour and Small and Mi­cro En­ter­prise De­vel­op­ment, Er­rol McLeod can in­ter­vene to re­solve the dis­pute which has led to a strike at Trinidad Ce­ment Lim­it­ed (TCL) by mem­bers of the Oil­fields Work­ers' Trade Union (OW­TU). How­ev­er, it must be at the re­quest of both par­ties and with the clear un­der­stand­ing of a will­ing­ness to ex­er­cise flex­i­bil­i­ty and com­pro­mise to bring about a res­o­lu­tion of the dis­pute at hand. In a state­ment yes­ter­day, the Min­istry not­ed that the strike at TCL, called on Feb­ru­ary 27, came in the wake of four con­cil­i­a­tion meet­ings at its San Fer­nan­do of­fices.

Ac­cord­ing to the Min­istry, con­cil­ia­to­ry meet­ings be­gan on Feb­ru­ary 9 and end­ed on Feb­ru­ary 23. At that point, the OW­TU was not­ed by the Min­istry to sign an ex­ten­sion of time un­der Sec­tion 55 (2)of the In­dus­tri­al Re­la­tions Act Chap­ter 88:01, to fa­cil­i­tate fur­ther con­cil­i­a­tion in the dis­pute. Sec­tion 55 (1) and (2) of the In­dus­tri­al Re­la­tions Act Chap­ter 88:01 states: "(1) The Min­is­ter shall, as soon as pos­si­ble af­ter a trade dis­pute has been re­port­ed or deemed to have been re­port­ed to him, take such steps as he may con­sid­er ad­vis­able to se­cure with­in 14 days next af­ter the date of the re­port, a set­tle­ment of the dis­pute by means of con­cil­i­a­tion.

(2) The par­ties to a dis­pute that has been re­port­ed to the Min­is­ter may agree in writ­ing to ex­tend the time spec­i­fied in sub­sec­tion (1) (in­clud­ing and fur­ther ex­ten­sion of time un­der this sub­sec­tion), with­in which the Min­is­ter may take steps to se­cure a set­tle­ment of the dis­pute by means of con­cil­i­a­tion." The Min­istry said par­ties in a dis­pute of this na­ture "have the right to take in­dus­tri­al ac­tion." How­ev­er, once such ac­tion is tak­en, any fur­ther in­ter­ven­tion by the Min­is­ter must be at the re­quest of both par­ties.