The Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) yes­ter­day had what it called a “cor­dial” meet­ing with the Oil­fields Work­ers’ Trade Union (OW­TU) on the union’s plan to save Petrotrin.

The UNC did not speak to the me­dia af­ter the meet­ing and in­stead is­sued a me­dia state­ment laud­ing the cor­dial ap­proach be­tween the two groups.

There is a his­to­ry of bad blood be­tween the UNC and the OW­TU, dat­ing back to Op­po­si­tion Leader Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s time as prime min­is­ter. Dur­ing the build-up to the 2015 gen­er­al elec­tions, the OW­TU had dragged a man­nequin on po­lit­i­cal plat­forms dressed in a yel­low out­fit to rep­re­sent Per­sad-Bisses­sar. She was in­sult­ed in ef­fi­gy for months by the union.

How­ev­er, the Per­sad-Bisses­sar and OW­TU pres­i­dent gen­er­al An­cel Ro­get seemed to put that be­hind them to fo­cus on the Gov­ern­ment’s plan to close down the Petrotrin re­fin­ery yes­ter­day.

Ac­cord­ing to the me­dia re­lease, Per­sad-Bises­sar was con­cern over Gov­ern­ment’s dis­re­gard for the em­ploy­ees” of the State-owned com­pa­ny. She has been say­ing that the com­pa­ny could be turned around and said the UNC had its own plan to fix the com­pa­ny.

“The Op­po­si­tion shares the view that the com­pa­ny can be turned around, the jobs of thou­sands of work­ers saved and the shut down of the re­fin­ery is not in the best in­ter­est of the com­pa­ny and the coun­try,” Per­sad-Bisses­sar said in the re­lease.

“Next Mon­day, the coun­try will learn from the Min­is­ter of Fi­nance what is our cur­rent eco­nom­ic stand­ing and it is hoped that the coun­try will hear some con­crete plans re­gard­ing the com­pa­ny’s fu­ture, giv­en its crit­i­cal im­por­tance to our na­tion’s en­er­gy sec­tor.”

She said in light of the man­ner in which Row­ley has han­dled this is­sue, the UNC did not ex­pect to hear any vi­able plans to se­cure the na­tion’s as­sets.

Speak­ing to the me­dia be­fore yes­ter­day’s meet­ing, Ro­get al­so re­it­er­at­ed that Petrotrin does not have to be shut down.

“We are for re­struc­tur­ing but we are not for shut­ting down the re­fin­ery,” Ro­get said to the me­dia.

He said the de­tails al­ter­na­tive plan would be pre­sent­ed to Per­sad-Bisses­sar. The union al­so sent copies of this plan to the Prime Min­is­ter’s Of­fice and the Of­fice of the Pres­i­dent.

“We have heard noth­ing from the Pres­i­dent of Trinidad and To­ba­go, very dis­re­spect­ful so far but we would be fol­low­ing up there al­so to en­sure all where we have de­liv­ered it, they get the ben­e­fit of a full pre­sen­ta­tion,” he said.

Ro­get said the meet­ing and pre­sen­ta­tion to Per­sad-Bisses­sar was no dif­fer­ent from the meet­ing the union had with the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) back in 2014, be­fore the elec­tion.

“We came to this same of­fice and de­liv­ered the is­sues and prob­lems that we saw tak­ing place at Petrotrin back then,” he said.

In 2014, Prime Min­is­ter Row­ley was the op­po­si­tion leader and Per­sad-Bisses­sar was the prime min­is­ter. Though their roles are now re­versed, Ro­get said the union’s mind­set re­mained the same.

“The one thing we are con­sis­tent about is our at­tempts to save Petrotrin...the leader of the Op­po­si­tion then got the ben­e­fit of the union’s pro­pos­al and thoughts and so on,” Ro­get said.

He said al­though Per­sad-Bisses­sar had a copy of the al­ter­na­tive plan, she need­ed the en­tire pre­sen­ta­tion to bet­ter un­der­stand the pro­pos­al.

The Petrotrin re­fin­ery is ex­pect­ed to be shut down in phas­es, start­ing from Oc­to­ber 1, 2018.

“They are in a state of con­fu­sion,” Ro­get said, cit­ing the dif­fer­ence in the re­ports of the amount of work­ers to be axed.

“Now we hear­ing the Prime Min­is­ter say­ing that the num­bers don’t mat­ter, can you be­lieve that? Well, we feel every life mat­ters,” he said.

The OW­TU is ex­pect­ed to have its sec­ond and fol­low-up meet­ing with the Petrotrin ex­ec­u­tive to­day.