Anger, frus­tra­tion, anx­i­ety, sad­ness, bit­ter­ness.

These are some of the words which now de­scribe the emo­tion­al state of some Petrotrin work­ers who will be los­ing their jobs when Gov­ern­ment be­gins the im­pend­ing re­struc­tur­ing process next month.

Some work­ers—na­tion­al­ly known names who’ve con­tributed to T&T be­yond com­pa­ny work—who spoke to Sun­day Guardian last week have been work­ing through a range of feel­ings since the clo­sure of Petrotrin’s re­fin­ery was an­nounced.

The pic­ture is bleak­er af­ter last Fri­day’s state­ment by the Petrotrin board re­in­forc­ing that clo­sure tran­si­tion be­gin­ning to­mor­row will be com­plet­ed by No­vem­ber 30.

Re­sult: the Oil­field Work­ers’ Trade Union march from south to north next week to send the mes­sage of the ef­fect on 5,000-plus lives on com­mu­ni­ties na­tion­wide. Those whose lives have gone from steady to shaky in a month, may not even be look­ing to to­mor­row’s Bud­get for as­sur­ance.

Fol­low­ing are some of the work­ers’ sto­ries mov­ing for­ward:

JAZZ SINGER

VAUGH­NETTE BIG­FORD

Big­ford feels like an abused wife who’s worked hard for a fam­i­ly and been dis­card­ed af­ter the spouse finds a new love.

“Se­ri­ous...that’s how I feel,” she told the Sun­day Guardian.

“I worked with Petrotrin (Ma­rine Op­er­a­tions) over 20 years. I love my Health/Safe­ty job, did my best for and con­tributed to the econ­o­my. But work­ers are be­ing vil­i­fied and made to pay the price for de­ci­sions of peo­ple above my pay grade, some dead, some alive reap­ing cor­rup­tion ben­e­fits.

“Gov­ern­ment’s in­ten­tion was vil­i­fy­ing us to get pub­lic sup­port for the clo­sure. But if I work for the next 15 years I’d nev­er come close to get­ting $38,000 month­ly. I’m a proud Petrotrin work­er—they’ve tak­en that pride away from me.

“They clear­ly have no clue of the de­ci­sion’s ef­fects on half of Petrotrin—its work­ers. Gov­ern­ment first talked of ‘en­hanced pack­age’, now we’re hear­ing strict­ly ‘sev­er­ance re­gard­ing col­lec­tive agree­ment’. It keep chang­ing. Jazz singing won’t sus­tain me 365 days. A col­league of mine and his fam­i­ly moved in­to their new home in Au­gust—the next day he got the clo­sure news. You can imag­ine their feel­ings.”

“I’ll def­i­nite­ly be in OW­TU’s march. To peo­ple hear­ing about clo­sure, we’re just num­bers—but we are peo­ple. Just like you.”

T&T WORLD CUP

IN­DOOR HOCK­EY CAP­TAIN SOLOMON EC­CLES

Ec­cles nev­er thought he’d re­gret leav­ing Lon­don stud­ies to re­turn home to work in Petrotrin.

And when he took the T&T team to Berlin in March—for first ever fi­nals and the Pan Amer­i­can Games last year, Ec­cles nev­er ever thought he might have to con­sid­er leav­ing T&T. But that might be­come his op­tion if he and his fam­i­ly can’t make it af­ter the re­fin­ery’s clo­sure.

Ec­cles, 35, of Cunu­pia, works in the re­fin­ery’s Op­er­a­tion sec­tion. Af­ter 10 years, his is one of the 1,700 crude oil re­fin­ery posts to be wiped out per­ma­nent­ly.

“I have a mort­gage, my son is nine months—this is the worst thing ever for us. My fa­ther worked in Petrotrin and since I knew my­self I’ve want­ed to do so al­so. My dad’s re­tired. But he doesn’t es­cape the cur­rent sit­u­a­tion since we don’t know what’ll hap­pen with his pen­sion.

“I think about this every day: why did I re­turn? I was seek­ing job se­cu­ri­ty. Now it’s gone. I wouldn’t have left Eng­land if I knew this would have hap­pened. I had op­por­tu­ni­ties, I was al­ready coach­ing at Old Loughto­ni­ans. When I re­turned I thought it was the best de­ci­sion. Oil prices were high. Now, I’m think­ing it was one of my worst de­ci­sions.”

Ec­cles added that Petrotrin had T&T’s best hock­ey team.

Like many oth­ers, Ec­cles speaks of bad com­pa­ny man­age­ment.

“Still, I nev­er ex­pect­ed this. First time I heard about clo­sure, I said they can’t be se­ri­ous—work was on as usu­al. I’m not sure what I’ll do un­til I see how they pro­ceed. I may con­sid­er mi­grat­ing, Unit­ed Arab Emi­rates has many re­finer­ies and I’m trained.

“My de­ci­sion will de­pend on how T&T’s econ­o­my goes. Un­til you have the an­swers on this clo­sure—and on the econ­o­my—mi­gra­tion re­mains my op­tion.”

FOR­MER T&T TRACK/FIELD STAR ALVIN DANIEL

“This is re­al life—it’s no ‘sto­ry’. Every­thing’s up­side down. At work, peo­ple in a daze, you talk­ing to some­body and they not re­spond­ing. Peo­ple think­ing about their house, car, their chil­dren in school or in uni­ver­si­ty—these are the hard facts. I can­not see any gov­ern­ment dis­plac­ing peo­ple with­out warn­ing like this.”

Daniel rep­re­sent­ed T&T at the 1992 Olympics, with a na­tion­al record in 400 me­tres re­lay. He’s a 1993 World Cham­pi­onship sil­ver medal hold­er, Carif­ta gold, sil­ver and bronze hold­er, CAC, Cari­com and T&T champ. He’s among a who’s who of na­tion­al sports stars who’ve worked with Petrotrin over decades.

Very like­ly to be among OW­TU marchers next week, he shared his feel­ings in tones of anger, mixed with sad­ness for the com­pa­ny he’s spent 28 years with, trav­el­ling from his Point Fortin home to his Pointe-a-Pierre Main­te­nance di­vi­sion job and de­spair for con­se­quences ahead.

“I’m 10 years to re­tire­ment but I can’t be fooled with ‘big pay­out’ talk. Once mon­ey ent com­ing in and it’s on­ly go­ing out, it won’t last. My fam­i­ly’s still in shock, think­ing, ‘how Row­ley could do this to we?’

• Con­tin­ues on Page A9

• From Page A8

“We aren’t sta­tis­tics—why any­body should hang a ‘big salary’ tag on me and want the whole coun­try to turn against work­ers? Peo­ple here work long hours, night in­to day, breath­ing in dan­ger­ous chem­i­cals dai­ly. You can un­der­stand that?”

As a for­mer na­tion­al sports­man, Daniel’s con­cerned about an­oth­er im­pact.

“Petrotrin and pre­de­ces­sor com­pa­nies weren’t on­ly about pro­duc­ing oil, they were al­ways in­cu­ba­tors for sports tal­ent. Youths from com­mu­ni­ties were trained and nur­tured. Petrotrin pro­duced big T&T tal­ent: foot­ball, crick­et, ath­let­ics, hock­ey, lawn/ta­ble ten­nis. You name play­ers—they worked there.

“We, in turn, were trained as youths’ role mod­els. What mech­a­nism will there be for youths? We might be cre­at­ing crime if they have no out­lets.

“Al­so, what will sev­er­ance pack­ages be for work­ers who act­ed in posts for years? What hap­pens to work­ers’ cas­es in the In­dus­tri­al Court? What about the Sports Club em­ploy­ees...South­ern Games and Guaracara Park? What about work­ers whose chil­dren at­tend the Spe­cial School and St Pe­ter’s school. Af­ter clo­sure, work­ers’ sick chil­dren or re­tirees won’t be able to use the hos­pi­tal. I work there so long, I’m even wor­ried about our prod­ucts and re­fin­ery as­sets.”

Daniel added, “Point nev­er had sport­ing fa­cil­i­ties. I trained in the road, the mud­dy sa­van­nah, but Point could be­come a ghost town again af­ter Trin­mar clos­es. I’m all about coun­try. I’ve been every­where - T&T’s best. I’ve done my part for T&T in sports, now look what your own coun­try do to you - put you out of a job.

“These are the things that make peo­ple turn away. I grew up in a PNM con­stituen­cy that on­ly vot­ed oth­er­wise (NAR) once in 30 years. In fu­ture, I have to think care­ful­ly about all my choic­es. I have more to wor­ry about now.”

IN­DE­PEN­DENT SEN­A­TOR MELIS­SA RAMKISSOON

Ramkissoon, a Petrotrin en­gi­neer, has worn a strong face while do­ing her Sen­ate tasks since the re­struc­tur­ing was an­nounced, but it’s masked a heavy heart.

Ramkissoon and her broth­er —al­so at Petrotrin—are chil­dren of the oil in­dus­try. Their fa­ther’s a for­mer Trin­toc em­ploy­ee and the fam­i­ly has ex­pe­ri­enced Trin­toc’s clo­sure. There­fore, the Petrotrin shut­down, where she los­es her job along­side 4,799 oth­ers, is es­pe­cial­ly dif­fi­cult.

She said, “Af­ter 10 years as an In­spec­tion En­gi­neer in Main­te­nance Ser­vices De­part­ment, four years at re­fin­ery and six in Ex­plo­ration and Pro­duc­tion, this is a sad, sad pe­ri­od for T&T. I don’t sup­port clo­sure of the re­fin­ery af­ter ma­jor in­vest­ments have been made to re­fur­bish var­i­ous fa­cil­i­ties and build new plants cost­ing mil­lions.

“Re­fin­ery prod­ucts—gaso­line, diesel, avi­a­tion fu­el, fu­el oil, bi­tu­men, LPG and oth­er by-prod­ucts—will no longer be­long to Trin­bag­o­ni­ans. Our na­tion’s core re­sources, oil and gas, run deep, em­bed­ded in the blood and sweat of decades of oil­field work­ers.

“I be­lieve the im­pact of this will be far-reach­ing and since the num­bers of work­ers (per­ma­nent, tem­po­rary, ca­su­al and con­tract) im­pact­ed are in the thou­sands, the ex­tent of this de­ci­sion is be­yond com­pre­hen­sion.”

SO­CA ARTISTE

NYAH GEORGE

George, who has worked his way up from ap­pren­tice­ship at 18 to Pointe-a-Pierre ad­min­is­tra­tion at 49, knows Petrotrin in­side out.

“To be re­al, I have no prob­lem with re­struc­tur­ing or staff cuts, but with the un­der­hand­ed tac­tics and the way this was done. I see through the cha­rade to the ob­vi­ous agen­da. If you want­ed to cut staff, there are 1,500 peo­ple over 50 for whom VSEP could have eas­i­ly been of­fered, why send every­body home all at once? To get rid of the union.”

George said the sit­u­a­tion tells him some­thing about T&T’s lead­ers.

“If you have a house, you wouldn’t shake it to make it un­sta­ble. It’s a big dis­re­spect to come in Au­gust and tell peo­ple ‘clo­sure in Oc­to­ber’ and up to now, no sep­a­ra­tion pack­age de­tails.

“You talk­ing about mis­man­age­ment, OK...but you’re hold­ing work­ers, who have to fol­low man­age­ment’s or­der, re­spon­si­ble for the sit­u­a­tion?”

George said he’ll give busi­ness in T&T a try un­til it doesn’t make sense.

“Then I may head to the US—they leave me with no choice

• Con­tin­ues on Page A10

• From Page A9

be­cause they pre­vent you from do­ing what you should be do­ing here.”

He added, “I see dark days for T&T. It’s Petrotrin work­ers who sup­port Mara­bel­la busi­ness, West­moor­ings peo­ple don’t come down here. Mara­bel­la could be­come a de­pressed area—a hotspot.”

George ex­pects to­mor­row’s Bud­get to have “gim­micks” to deal with the sit­u­a­tion.

“But we’re not on­ly liv­ing for 18 months be­fore elec­tions, we’re liv­ing be­yond elec­tions. Peo­ple may have good ideas but for the of­fice they hold, they’re lack­ing in pro­vid­ing a bet­ter qual­i­ty of life. This (clo­sure) may be the straw that breaks the camel’s back—who doubt, let’s wait and see.”

STRIKE SQUAD

NA­TION­AL FOOT­BALLER BRI­AN WILLIAMS

A for­mer na­tion­al foot­baller and coach­ing name since 1979, in­clud­ing with Petrotrin’s 2006/08 team, Williams’ com­pa­ny ties be­gan with its Tesoro pre­de­ces­sor from 18. Af­ter 28 years, late­ly with San­ta Flo­ra’s Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Unit, he’s try­ing to brave the clo­sure.

His per­son­al view: “I nev­er thought it’d shut down, we say Petrotrin was here for life. I grew up in San­ta Flo­ra. Sur­round­ing com­mu­ni­ties once de­pend­ed on Petrotrin for garbage col­lec­tion, grass cut­ting, main­te­nance. It had deep com­mu­ni­ty links which goes be­yond re­fin­ery work.

“I have a few years be­fore re­tire­ment. I know change is the on­ly con­stant and we have to adapt, but I was re­al­ly tak­en aback with the ex­tent of Petrotrin’s loss­es. We knew things re­quired at­ten­tion, but it’s sad to­day’s em­ploy­ees have to car­ry the mis­man­age­ment bur­den of the past.”

He added: “It’s dif­fi­cult to deal with af­ter the con­tri­bu­tion Petrotrin made to T&T and the south. If we had loss­es some­thing should have been done to pre­vent clo­sure. But we have to trust de­ci­sion mak­ers. If it has to close in T&T’s in­ter­est—so be it. Life has to go on and ad­just.

“But be­cause of Petrotrin’s huge spon­sor­ships in sports, ed­u­ca­tion and cul­ture, the name will be missed great­ly. I was prepar­ing for re­tire­ment, coach­ing, but I’m sad for the com­mu­ni­ty since Petrotrin was the main em­ploy­er. I hope de­ci­sion-mak­ers do right for T&T—and work­ers.”