Anna-Lisa Paul
The Oilfield Workers Trade Union (OWTU) has issued a warning to government to refrain from sending public servants home or there will be "hell to pay in T&T".
Addressing workers at an early-morning meeting outside National Petroleum (NP) in Sea Lots yesterday, OWTU President Ancel Roget promised to seek a meeting with the senior management team to discuss the number of vacancies existing within the company.
He accused Finance Minister Colm Imbert and the rest of the Cabinet of turning their backs on workers.
Roget said NP had resisted filling the vacancies because they had embarked on a calculated plan to retrench workers.
He claimed this move had placed the workers' pension plan at risk, coupled with the increased hiring of contract workers to perform haulage duties.
Roget said currently, 80 per cent of the workers performing this function had been employed on a contractual basis as the company had effectively reduced the number of permanent workers in this area.
Vowing not to rest until the jobs of the workers were secured, Roget promised, "We are prepared to take action that will see this place shutting down in the interest of the workers of T&T."
Roget predicted that at the start of the year, "We will see an avalanche of workers being sent home."
However, he said the OWTU did not intend to stand by and let this happen as the only way out of this crisis was to grow all sectors of the economy and this could not be done if workers were being dismissed.