Derek Achong

Petrotrin has failed in its at­tempt to ex­tend its in­junc­tion against the Oil­fields Work­ers' Trade Union (OW­TU), to stop union mem­bers from en­gag­ing in protest ac­tion at the state-owned oil and gas com­pa­ny.In dis­miss­ing the ap­pli­ca­tion yes­ter­day, pres­i­dent of the In­dus­tri­al Court Deb­o­rah Thomas-Fe­lix said the court did not think it was nec­es­sary as the com­pa­ny had not brought any fur­ther com­plaint against the union since the in­junc­tion was grant­ed in March last year.

She al­so stat­ed that the com­pa­ny failed to con­vince the court that it will suf­fer ir­repara­ble dam­age or ir­re­deemable prej­u­dice if the in­junc­tion was not ex­tend­ed. Petrotrin was grant­ed the in­junc­tion in March, af­ter the union en­gaged in a week of protest at the com­pa­ny's Op­er­at­ing Fields and Pointe-a-Pierre Re­fin­ery over an es­ti­mat­ed $145 mil­lion in vari­able pay, for the pe­ri­od 2009/2010, which the union claimed is owed to them.The com­pa­ny claimed that the protest ac­tion had cost the State al­most $700 mil­lion in loss­es in one week.

As a re­sult, the com­pa­ny claimed that it could not pay any bonus to work­ers as it had not made a prof­it dur­ing that pe­ri­od.The com­pa­ny ap­plied for the ex­ten­tion, af­ter the in­junc­tion ex­pired, two weeks ago.The in­junc­tion formed part of a sub­stan­tive com­plaint against the OW­TU un­der Sec­tion 63 (1) of the In­dus­tri­al Re­la­tions Act for tak­ing strike ac­tion which was not in con­for­mi­ty with the Act.In her oral judg­ment, Thomas-Fe­lix not­ed that the com­pli­ant was yet to be de­ter­mined and had been de­layed by Petrotrin's ap­pli­ca­tion.

She said that an in­junc­tion from the court was un­nec­es­sary as the com­pa­ny has a statu­to­ry guar­an­tee that the union will not en­gage in protest while the com­plaint was be­ing de­ter­mined.Thomas-Fe­lix said if the union was found to breach this, there were penal­ties un­der the In­dus­tri­al Re­la­tions Act, that would be ap­plic­a­ble.She al­so ad­vised the com­pa­ny's at­tor­neys that if they chose to ap­peal the court's de­ci­sion on the is­sue while the in­dus­tri­al re­la­tions com­pli­ant was de­ter­mined by In­dus­tri­al Court, it may be deemed pure­ly aca­d­e­m­ic.

In­dus­tri­al Court judges Al­bert Ab­erdeen, Kyril Jack and Nizam Khan, al­so sat on yes­ter­day's pan­el.Se­nior Coun­sel Rus­sell Mar­tineau, Ravi Khan and Al­lis­ter Khan rep­re­sent­ed Petrotrin while An­tho­ny Bul­lock ap­peared for OW­TU.