Permanent senior staff employees of Stork Technical Services who went against the advice of the Oilfield Workers Trade Union and accepted VSEP have now found themselves in hot water and want the company to renegotiate with them.
The employees, who staged a protest outside of the company’s headquarters in Point Lisas, are upset after the company informed them that their Voluntary Separation Enhancement packages will be subjected to a 25 per cent tax from the Board of Inland Revenue.
Among those who broke ranks and took the offer was former shop steward of the Oilfield Workers Trade Union Learie Licorish.
In an interview, Licorish said VSEP was offered to 50 permanent workers from the Scaffolding department at Point Lisas and Mayaro/Guayaguayare. However, he said the information was withheld from the Mayaro/Guayaguayare workers and after being presented with an enhanced package of VSEP, 20 of them agreed to accept the offer.
“The workers at Point Lisas had more information than us and they did not accept VSEP,” Licorish said.
Senior supervisor at the Scaffolding department Vivian Hutch said the decision to accept the offer was based on a promise of enhancement from the company. He said, “We were given an agreement that we will be paid a certain amount of money. (Name called) told us the package will not be taxed. Some of us got a 15 per cent enhancement and others got a 20 per cent enhancement. The agreement we made with Stork was that no tax will be paid on this money. We signed a document, we asked if the money will be taxed and they said anything under $300,000 will not be taxed. On the final day of agreement when we were supposed to receive our cheque, they called and said the cheque is at the Board of Inland Revenue and they will be taking a 25 per cent tax,” Hutch said.
Hutch called for renegotiations to begin regarding VSEP.
“We hope that the company will; honour its promise to pay our taxes for us. We are all unemployed now and school is going to open next month. Some of us have not bought school books yet and we are depending on this money to see us through until we can get another job. The company has betrayed us and has deceived us,” Hutch said.
Last month Stork’s country manager Philip Vilain confirmed that VSEP was being offered but he denied it was unfair. He also said the Ministry of Labour would have been informed of the company’s decision when it knew how many workers accepted the offer.
OWTU’s Labour Relations Officer Lyndon Mendoza said the OWTU remains opposed to contract labour and had advised workers not to accept the offer of VSEP.