Rad­hi­ca Sookraj

Three Trinidad and To­ba­go Elec­tric­i­ty Com­mis­sion (T&TEC) work­ers were sus­pend­ed yes­ter­day af­ter they were re­port­ed­ly caught drink­ing al­co­hol in a rum shop on the East­ern Main Road in Ari­ma. In an im­me­di­ate re­sponse to the sus­pen­sion, T&TEC's act­ing gen­er­al man­ag­er Kelvin Ram­sook ap­pealed to bar own­ers not to serve al­co­hol to T&TEC work­ers while they were on du­ty.

Ram­sook said dis­ci­pli­nary ac­tion would be tak­en against the work­ers once they were found guilty. He said with­in re­cent times, the com­mis­sion had re­ceived re­ports that cer­tain T&TEC work­ers were neg­li­gent in their du­ties and were con­sum­ing al­co­hol dur­ing work hours even though the com­mis­sion set­tled wage ne­go­ti­a­tions by giv­ing a nine per cent wage in­crease.

He said a T&TEC in­spec­tor who was on pa­trol spot­ted the marked T&TEC truck parked in front of the bar on Thurs­day. When he in­ves­ti­gat­ed, he found the men sit­ting around a ta­ble drink­ing al­co­hol. A com­plaint was made and all three work­ers were sus­pend­ed pend­ing an in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

Ram­sook said since a spate of work­place ac­ci­dents and fa­tal­i­ties in 2011, T&TEC had em­barked on con­tin­u­ous train­ing pro­grammes to ed­u­cate work­ers about health and safe­ty re­quire­ments. This was done in con­sul­ta­tion with the Oc­cu­pa­tion­al Safe­ty and Health Agency. "We height­ened our en­tire safe­ty in­put and we took a ze­ro tol­er­ance (ap­proach) when it comes to ac­ci­dents," Ram­sook said.

"We al­so hired ex­ter­nal con­sul­tants who did lec­tures and train­ing." He not­ed that the num­ber of HSE in­spec­tors was al­so in­creased and were giv­en the pow­er to shut down job sites if safe­ty reg­u­la­tions were be­ing breached. "A lot of poli­cies and pro­ce­dures were de­vel­oped, one of which is ab­solute­ly no drink­ing of al­co­hol dur­ing work­ing hours," Ram­sook said.

He not­ed that the in­ci­dent at Ari­ma was the third to have oc­curred with­in re­cent times. Two months ago, a work site in cen­tral Trinidad was shut down af­ter work­ers were found to be in­tox­i­cat­ed, Ram­sook said. A sim­i­lar re­port was al­so made in To­co.

Ram­sook ex­pressed con­cern that some em­ploy­ees were drink­ing even though sup­port sys­tems were in place un­der T&TEC's Em­ploy­ee As­sis­tance Pro­gramme. "Peo­ple have an al­ter­na­tive and they should not be risk­ing safe­ty by drink­ing on the job," the man­ag­er said. He ex­plained that four more in­spec­tors will be hired soon.

In the mean­time, Ram­sook called on bar own­ers to be re­spon­si­ble and to stop sell­ing liquor to T&TEC work­ers. Pres­i­dent Gen­er­al of the Oil­fields Work­ers' Trade Union An­cel Ro­get could not be reached for com­ment, as as calls to his cell­phone went unan­swered.

FLASH­BACK

In Sep­tem­ber 2011, 23-year-old T&TEC crafts­man trainee Richie Rivers was elec­tro­cut­ed while work­ing on the East­ern Main Road, Tu­na­puna. Po­lice said Rivers, of Guayn­abo Es­tate, Rio Claro, fell 20 feet to the ground af­ter elec­tric­i­ty surged through his body while work­ing near Food Mas­ters.

On Jan­u­ary 10, Ghana­ian na­tion­al Samuel Own­su al­so died from elec­tro­cu­tion. One week lat­er, 42-year-old elec­tri­cal lines­man Gary Pat­ter­son al­so died while on du­ty. None of the deaths were re­lat­ed to al­co­hol con­sump­tion.