Pub­lic Ser­vice As­so­ci­a­tion (PSA) pres­i­dent Wat­son Duke yes­ter­day gave the man­age­ment of two en­er­gy com­pa­nies a dead­line of two and a half weeks to re­solve is­sues with work­ers’ per­for­mance ap­praisals.

Duke did not say what ac­tion the union would take if the man­age­ment of Phoenix Park Gas Proces­sors Lim­it­ed (PPG­PL) and the T&T Na­tion­al Gas Com­pa­ny Ltd (TTNGL) failed to com­ply, but he re­ferred to a na­tion­wide black­out in 2013.

Ac­com­pa­nied by a group of work­ers as he spoke at the en­trance of PPG­PL, Duke said: “I was told around East­er 2013 the im­por­tance of Phoenix Park Gas Proces­sors Lim­it­ed was known to this na­tion when some­thing went wrong in the plant and there was a na­tion­wide black­out.

“I’m say­ing, things have gone wrong in Pow­er­Gen and we still had a lit­tle elec­tric­i­ty. Things have gone wrong in Petrotrin when it was Petrotrin and we still had a lit­tle elec­tric­i­ty. To­day the work­load has in­creased up­on these work­ers from 2013 to now. Now they are re­spon­si­ble for LPG, that is cook­ing gas, and we would not want any­thing to go wrong on June 7.

“We want noth­ing to go wrong on that day or be­fore that day or af­ter that day. In or­der for things to go right, the em­ploy­ees must be in the right frame of mind.”

Duke claimed chair­man Ger­ry Brooks and pres­i­dent Do­minic Ram­per­sad be­gan to at­tack the em­ploy­ees in 2017 when they froze salaries with­out any agree­ment or con­sul­ta­tion, then changed the method used for per­for­mance ap­praisals.

“No pres­i­dent, no chair­man, has the right to eval­u­ate and down­grade an em­ploy­ee per­for­mance ap­praisal when the chair­man and the pres­i­dent is not the di­rect su­per­vi­sor, so this is way off base,” he said.

Duke fur­ther claimed that per­for­mance ap­praisals were be­ing done us­ing a bell curve.

“What em­ploy­ees have found is that even though their im­me­di­ate su­per­vi­sors are giv­ing them Grade 5, the high­est grade, and even though their work is scor­ing the high­est in each and every cat­e­go­ry in which they are grad­ed, when it goes to the pres­i­dent and the chair­man, it comes back with a low­er grade,” he said.

He said the mat­ter was be­fore the Labour Min­istry’s con­cil­ia­tors but the PSA is “open to ne­go­ti­a­tions and in­deed the mat­ter can be solved eas­i­ly be­fore it goes to court.”

Warn­ing that the union should not be treat­ed light­ly, he added: “Let them know this is not Petrotrin. This is not some lit­tle toolum fac­to­ry sug­ar cake fac­to­ry. This, as you see, rep­re­sents im­por­tance in the en­er­gy sec­tor, in par­tic­u­lar when there is no Drag­on Field, when BP has found dry wells, when our abil­i­ty to pro­duce gas and to boost our­selves in the en­er­gy sec­tor is go­ing down.

“You do not want to chal­lenge the PSA. You do not want to chal­lenge NATUC.

“You do not want to chal­lenge the rights of the em­ploy­ees, they have rights. Please re­spect their rights and I say un­to you mark to­day’s date. You have two weeks and a half to set­tle up or else.”