KEVON FELMINE

Se­nior Re­porter

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

The Steel Work­ers’ Union (SWUTT) is call­ing on the Gov­ern­ment to in­ter­vene in the drawn-out liq­ui­da­tion of the Arcelor­Mit­tal steel plant at Point Lisas, as the process is stalling pay­ment of mil­lions in sev­er­ance to for­mer em­ploy­ees.

Union mem­bers and ex-work­ers left Wednes­day’s cred­i­tors’ meet­ing at the Cara Suites Ho­tel and Con­fer­ence Cen­tre in Clax­ton Bay, dis­ap­point­ed yet again. De­spite TT Iron and Steel Com­pa­ny ac­quir­ing the plant, work­ers said the liq­uida­tor claims it has not re­ceived the full pur­chase sum, leav­ing work­ers un­paid nine years af­ter the plant shut down.

Speak­ing to re­porters af­ter the meet­ing, SWUTT Pres­i­dent Tim­o­thy Bai­ley ap­pealed to the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress-led Gov­ern­ment, urg­ing it to rec­ti­fy the in­ac­tion of its pre­de­ces­sor.

“I am call­ing on the new Gov­ern­ment, which is say­ing that they are com­pas­sion­ate and are say­ing every­body wins. I am say­ing this is an ide­al sit­u­a­tion for your in­ter­ven­tion,” Bai­ley said.

“The Kei­th Row­ley-led PNM did noth­ing for nine years for steel work­ers for what­ev­er rea­son, and we are say­ing that un­der the cir­cum­stances now, you can­not al­low cit­i­zens of Trinidad and To­ba­go to go through that suf­fer­ing and a liq­uida­tor to op­er­ate the way this cur­rent liq­uida­tor is op­er­at­ing.”

Bai­ley said TT Iron and Steel pur­chased the plant in 2023 for US$30 mil­lion but on­ly paid US$3 mil­lion, which was passed to Plipde­co. He ques­tioned why the plant was hand­ed over with­out full pay­ment, leav­ing noth­ing for for­mer em­ploy­ees.

“We are hear­ing to­day that be­cause the Drag­on Deal fell through, we have to give TT Iron and Steel a ‘bligh’. I am say­ing that it is un­fair that a jus­ti­fi­ca­tion can be made that you have not re­ceived as the liq­uida­tor the en­tire amount... and you could hand over the plant to TT Iron and Steel. If that is the case, you are sup­posed to hand over the plant to me and my mem­bers. This is to­tal non­sense.”

He said the union sup­ports the plant’s restart un­der new own­er­ship, but prefers a clean sale that ends the liq­ui­da­tion process.

He ar­gued that the cur­rent buy­er re­ceived favourable terms not ex­tend­ed to oth­ers.

Un­der the pre­vi­ous sale agree­ment, any fail­ure to com­plete pay­ment with­in a fixed time­frame would au­to­mat­i­cal­ly void the sale, with no re­fund.

Bai­ley ques­tioned why this clause did not ap­ply now, es­pe­cial­ly when work­ers’ sev­er­ance and in­jury set­tle­ments, worth over US$30 mil­lion, re­main un­paid.

Arcelor­Mit­tal shut down op­er­a­tions in March 2016 amid glob­al and lo­cal fi­nan­cial pres­sures, ter­mi­nat­ing 644 em­ploy­ees with­out sev­er­ance.