An­na-Lisa Paul

Mem­bers of the pub­lic have been warned there could be un­ex­plained in­ter­rup­tions in the elec­tric­i­ty sup­ply if the Gov­ern­ment does not move ur­gent­ly to ad­dress is­sues of cor­rup­tion and mis­man­age­ment at the Trinidad and To­ba­go Elec­tric­i­ty Com­mis­sion (T&TEC).

Blast­ing Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter An­cil An­toine for his ar­ro­gance and in­com­pe­tence, pres­i­dent of the Oil­fields Work­ers' Trade Union (OW­TU), An­cel Ro­get, yes­ter­day promised they were "get­ting ready to rum­ble" due to the un­fair and cor­rupt prac­tices at the au­thor­i­ty.

Stand­ing in the rain as scores of T&TEC work­ers pick­et­ed the Min­istry of Pub­lic Util­i­ties, Eliz­a­beth Street, Wood­brook, un­der the watch­ful eyes of heav­i­ly-armed po­lice and mem­bers of the Spe­cial Branch, Ro­get called for An­toine to be re­moved as head of the min­istry due to his in­com­pe­tence and in­abil­i­ty to ad­dress prop­er­ly the is­sues af­fect­ing work­ers.

Ad­dress­ing re­porters, Ro­get said the work­ers were "in­fu­ri­at­ed" over An­toine's state­ments, in­fer­ring that they were not work­ing and that con­tract labour was the way to go to im­prove T&TEC's op­er­a­tions.

Claim­ing it was these same work­ers that pro­vid­ed an es­sen­tial ser­vice, Ro­get said: "The T&TEC work­er pro­vides pow­er for the coun­try, which is the same pow­er the min­is­ter en­joys and, there­fore, af­ter putting their lives at risk to en­sure re­li­a­bil­i­ty of this par­tic­u­lar ser­vice to the coun­try, for the min­is­ter to have made a state­ment like that which sup­ports the cor­rup­tion in T&TEC, be­cause con­tract equals cor­rup­tion, is dis­re­spect­ful and con­temp­tu­ous.

"For the min­is­ter to sup­port con­tract work which vi­o­lates the col­lec­tive agree­ment and leaves the com­mis­sion's em­ploy­ees idle while the con­trac­tors have a field day, we feel that it is a sort of sup­port for con­tin­u­ing the cor­rup­tion we know ex­ists at T&TEC."

Urg­ing An­toine to "get his act to­geth­er," Ro­get in­sist­ed that he should be in­ves­ti­gat­ed in terms of his com­pe­tence and qual­i­fi­ca­tion to lead the min­istry and for his con­tin­ued sup­port of the sys­tem at T&TEC.

Sur­round­ed by the OW­TU sec­ond vice-pres­i­dent, Pe­ter Burke, and pres­i­dent of the In­dus­tri­al Gen­er­al and San­i­ta­tion Work­ers Union (IGSWU), Robert Be­na­cia, Ro­get said:

"We pro­vide lights for every­body and a source of pow­er for the coun­try and if the work­ers are be­ing dis­re­spect­ed and their jobs are be­ing threat­ened and sup­port­ed by the min­is­ter say­ing con­tract labour is pre­ferred in­stead of the work­ers, you can very well ex­pect a lot of ac­tion."

He said pay­ments had dou­bled as a re­sult be­cause per­ma­nent em­ploy­ees con­tin­ued to col­lect a salary while con­trac­tors were al­so be­ing paid to do the same job.

Ro­get added: "The con­trac­tors are not ef­fi­cient or com­pe­tent and are putting them­selves and the pub­lic at risk when they are sent to do work that the trained work­ers are sup­posed to be per­form­ing.

"The work­ers then have to go back and cor­rect the faults of the con­trac­tors and some­thing is wrong with that equa­tion."

Even as a uni­formed po­lice of­fi­cer halt­ed the me­dia brief­ing de­mand­ing to speak to Ro­get and in­sist­ing on the work­ers dis­pers­ing, Ro­get said:

"We are about deal­ing with all of that and if we can­not work in the bright light, we will do it with­out the light."

The con­fronta­tion be­tween the po­lice and pro­tes­tors sim­mered down fol­low­ing the in­ter­ven­tion of a se­nior of­fi­cer from the Wood­brook Po­lice Sta­tion. who agreed the work­ers were not con­tra­ven­ing the law as they were demon­strat­ing in a peace­ful man­ner and not ob­struct­ing the free flow of pedes­tri­an or ve­hic­u­lar traf­fic.

Be­fore join­ing the pro­tes­tors, Ro­get re­peat­ed: "When you have a min­is­ter who has a pref­er­ence for con­tract work rather than per­ma­nent and com­pe­tent em­ploy­ees, what in fact will hap­pen both by the work­ers re­ac­tion and al­low­ing con­tract work­ers to do their jobs, he is not guar­an­tee­ing a re­li­able sup­ply of elec­tric­i­ty."

The OW­TU head said the ac­tion would con­tin­ue un­til im­me­di­ate changes were made at T&TEC.

MIN­ISTRY RE­SPONDS

Of­fi­cials of the Min­istry of Pub­lic Util­i­ties yes­ter­day said Ro­get had re­fused to par­tic­i­pate in a gen­er­al meet­ing with oth­er union lead­ers at the min­istry on Wednes­day which had been con­vened to dis­cuss the pay­ment of ar­rears of salaries re­sult­ing from the col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing ne­go­ti­a­tions for the pe­ri­od 2011 to 2013.

Present at the meet­ing were rep­re­sen­ta­tives from the Trinidad and To­ba­go Postal Work­ers Union (TTP­WU); the Es­tate Po­lice As­so­ci­a­tion (EPA), rep­re­sent­ing work­ers from the Na­tion­al Main­te­nance, Train­ing and Se­cu­ri­ty Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed (MTS) and the In­dus­tri­al Gen­er­al and San­i­ta­tion Work­ers Union (IGSW).

A re­lease stat­ed: "The Oil­fields Work­ers' Trade Union (OW­TU) was al­so in­vit­ed to meet with the min­is­ter and the MPU ex­ec­u­tive but they did not at­tend. Calls to Mr An­cel Ro­get, pres­i­dent of the OW­TU, went unan­swered."

The min­istry said the meet­ings were part of the min­istry's on­go­ing ef­fort to en­gage with the unions in an at­tempt to ad­dress in­dus­tri­al re­la­tions is­sues with­in the sec­tor, there­by en­abling a bet­ter qual­i­ty of util­i­ty ser­vices for the broad­er na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty.?