Sascha Wil­son

Ce­mex/Trinidad Ce­ment Ltd work­ers, ex-work­ers and re­tirees staged an­oth­er plac­ard protest yes­ter­day morn­ing.

Chant­i­ng union songs, they blocked ve­hi­cles from en­ter­ing and ex­it­ing the Clax­ton Bay com­pound, as they de­mand­ed that the com­pa­ny pay them their out­stand­ing mon­ey and oth­er ben­e­fits.

While they have held sev­er­al protests in the past over these is­sues, yes­ter­day was the sec­ond time this week they protest­ed in front of the gates.

They claimed the com­pa­ny has not paid them for CO­LA and gains share and has made changes to pen­sion and med­ical plans in vi­o­la­tion of the col­lec­tive agree­ment.

Oil­field Work­ers’ Trade Union branch pres­i­dent Kevin Ar­joon said the man­ner in which man­age­ment is treat­ing the work­ers is un­nec­es­sary.

He said, “The ben­e­fits that they are with­hold­ing from the work­ers here to­day, the ben­e­fits are in­de­pen­dent of new ne­go­ti­a­tions. They are for ben­e­fits that are al­ready en­shrined in the col­lec­tive agree­ment, so they more or less hold­ing peo­ple mon­ey and ben­e­fits in front of them and dan­gling it like a car­rot and hold­ing them at ran­som with the hope that they give up their ben­e­fits.

“Again, these work­ers are not protest­ing for noth­ing new. These are things al­ready en­shrined in the col­lec­tive agree­ment.”

While the com­pa­ny has not reached out to the union, he said, work­ers will con­tin­ue to protest.

“As a work­er my­self, I feel the frus­tra­tion that these pen­sion­ers, these ex-work­ers these cur­rent work­ers. They re­move them fel­las pen­sion from the pen­sion plan, so they in­ter­fer­ing with our pen­sion plan. These fel­las work here 40 years and can­not get a cor­rect pen­sion as yet. Over the last three months, eight peo­ple have died from this fam­i­ly, they still wait­ing for their mon­ey, their fam­i­lies no bet­ter off,” he lament­ed.

Dwayne Bap­tiste, al­so a union rep­re­sen­ta­tive and em­ploy­ee, said the work­ers are frus­trat­ed be­cause they are fight­ing for ben­e­fits to which they are en­ti­tled.

“Every time we come out here the num­bers will grow and it will in­ten­si­fy.”

Call­ing on the com­pa­ny to pay them their mon­ey, he said they are not protest­ing be­cause they don’t want to work.

Bap­tiste added, “We love our jobs. This is what takes care of us and our fam­i­lies but mod­ern-day liv­ing is on the up and up and we still work­ing on 2014 salaries.”

He said the ben­e­fits have been owed to them for more than sev­en years.

When Guardian Me­dia con­tact­ed TCL’s com­mu­ni­ca­tions and CSR co­or­di­na­tor Janelle Collins, she said the com­pa­ny at this time had no re­sponse to the work­ers’ griev­ances.