A Trinidad & Tobago Electricity Commission (T&TEC) contract worker escaped serious injury yesterday when a bucket in which he was working fell to the ground. The incident occurred in St Ann's around midday and, according to the Oilfield Workers Trade Union (OWTU), the worker was injured and had to be hospitalised. However, T&TEC's corporate communications manager, Annabelle Brasnell, denied this. She said according to information she received, he was not injured. Asked for the worker's name, Brasnell said she did not want to share that information. The union said the employee, who worked with a tree trimming contractor of T&TEC, was in an elevated bucket when the truck to which it was attached careened towards a sidewalk and hit a wall. The bucket fell to the ground with him inside it.
Executive vice-president of OWTU, Peter Burke, said it was the fifth such incident in the last five months. He said four workers, contract and permanent, died over this period in work-related incidents. OWTU president Ancel Roget said the union continued to raise the issue of worker safety with the board and management of T&TEC. The Occupational Health & Safety Act is flaunted everyday by T&TEC's management. Workers are dying, he said. Roget said a part of the problem was the hiring of contractors by the company whose workers are not properly trained. He said the union has been calling for a better level of protection for T&TEC workers through the restoration of safety rules and regulations. Brasnell, however, said since the death of T&TEC employee Gary Patterson in January earlier this year, the company had reviewed all its safety procedures. Patterson, of Tableland was electrocuted while doing hot work on the Penal Quinam Road. She said this was done in conjunction with the OWTU with a view to ensuring 100 per cent compliance with all its safety rules and regulations.
Brasnell said only two of the four workers who died in T&TEC-related work activity over the last five months were employees of the company. She said one was an employee of a contractor and the other was a FLOW cable company worker. She said T&TEC is on a safety drive ensuring that all workers, those employed with the company and by contractors, adhere to safety rules. We are going to be more stringent in terms of compliance to safety rules, she said. OWTU union officials made the disclosure about the St Ann's incident in front of the Industrial Court, Port-of-Spain, where they spoke with the media. They were at the court for a conciliation hearing concerning the ongoing wage negotiations with T&TEC. After a series of protests against the Government's five per cent wage offer, the union took the matter to court. Roget said the union was awaiting recommendations from the court which will, hopefully, bring an end to the impasse. He said workers were being mobilised to take a particular course of action (if the matter is not settled to their advantage) and when the time comes, the country will feel the effects.