Sascha Wil­son

Pres­i­dent gen­er­al of the Oil­field Work­ers' Trade Union (OW­TU) An­cel Ro­get says his union will not con­done al­co­hol con­sump­tion by work­ers. He was re­spond­ing to the sus­pen­sion of three em­ploy­ees of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Elec­tric­i­ty Com­mis­sion (T&TEC) af­ter they were al­leged­ly caught drink­ing al­co­hol in a rum shop in Ari­ma.

While OW­TU con­demns work­ers drink­ing on the job, Ro­get said, "But I am not sure if that is the case." In­ter­viewed in Point Fortin on Fri­day night at a pub­lic march in re­mem­brance of Tubal Uri­ah "Buzz" But­ler, he said he had not yet re­ceived a re­port on the mat­ter from his vice-pres­i­dent Pe­ter Burke.

How­ev­er, he said, "I want to make it abun­dant­ly clear that T&TEC man­age­ment is about to pro­voke the wrath of the work­ers and the re­sponse of OW­TU (will be) the likes of which we haven't seen in quite a while. It will threat­en the re­li­a­bil­i­ty sup­ply for the com­mod­i­ty that is elec­tric­i­ty."

Cit­ing un­safe work­ing con­di­tions and vi­o­la­tions of the col­lec­tive agree­ment, he said, "We are not go­ing to al­low work­ers to be at­tacked and vic­timised at the hands of T&TEC man­age­ment and if that is afoot and at work, they have cho­sen the worst time to do that-Labour Day, when we cel­e­brate 75 years."