Coun­try man­ag­er of Stork Tech­ni­cal Ser­vices Philip Vi­lain has de­nied re­ports that con­tract work­ers were now be­ing hired to re­place per­ma­nent work­ers who ac­cept­ed Vol­un­tary Sep­a­ra­tion En­hance­ment pack­ages against the ad­vice of their union last month.

Re­spond­ing to ques­tions sent to him via What­sapp, Vi­lain al­so de­nied that the com­pa­ny had promised to pay the Board of In­land Rev­enue tax­es on be­half of the work­ers.

"En­hanced Vol­un­tary Sep­a­ra­tion En­hance­ment Pack­age was of­fered based on dis­cus­sions with the em­ploy­ees union. The em­ploy­ees were told that we will ap­ply to BIR for an ex­emp­tion on the tax­es due on the agreed sum but that out­come was not guar­an­teed," he ex­plained.

Say­ing the BIR did not grant the ex­emp­tion, Vi­lain said they were now seek­ing a meet­ing with the Oil­field Work­ers Trade Union to seek a res­o­lu­tion to the mat­ter.

He al­so said, "I have no knowl­edge that new scaf­fold­ers were hired to re­place the staffers who ac­cept­ed VSEP."

On Tues­day, per­ma­nent se­nior staff em­ploy­ees staged a protest out­side of the com­pa­ny's head­quar­ters in Point Lisas say­ing they were hood­winked by the com­pa­ny.

For­mer shop stew­ard of the Oil­field Work­ers Trade Union Learie Licor­ish, who al­so ac­cept­ed VSEP said the of­fer was made to 50 per­ma­nent work­ers from the Scaf­fold­ing de­part­ment at Point Lisas and Ma­yaro/Guayagua­yare of which 20 of them ac­cept­ed.