KEVON FELMINE

Se­nior Re­porter

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

Eight years af­ter they were dis­missed for tak­ing a stand on health and safe­ty is­sues aboard an off­shore plat­form, 22 for­mer Lennox Pe­tro­le­um Ser­vices work­ers say they re­main black­list­ed from the en­er­gy sec­tor—de­spite a le­gal vic­to­ry and an or­der for com­pen­sa­tion.

Frus­trat­ed, fi­nan­cial­ly strained, and in some cas­es un­well, the men re­turned to the In­dus­tri­al Court in San Fer­nan­do yes­ter­day hop­ing for a res­o­lu­tion. In­stead, they left dis­heart­ened, re­ceiv­ing no up­date on when their case will be fi­nalised or pay­ments re­leased.

The group now plans to ap­peal di­rect­ly to the Gov­ern­ment and In­dus­tri­al Court pres­i­dent Heather Seale for in­ter­ven­tion.

“We have a new regime that has tak­en over. We don’t know if they will lis­ten and hear what we’re say­ing—that it’s since 2017 these fel­lows have been catch­ing hell. They have noth­ing. They are black­list­ed,” said Adri­an Alexan­der, one of the for­mer work­ers.

In 2017, the men—con­tract­ed by Lennox Pe­tro­le­um—re­fused to work un­der un­safe con­di­tions off­shore. Backed by the Oil­fields Work­ers’ Trade Union (OW­TU), they faced swift ter­mi­na­tion. Le­gal pro­ceed­ings fol­lowed, and af­ter a three-year bat­tle, the In­dus­tri­al Court ruled in their favour, or­der­ing retroac­tive pay­ment with in­ter­est by Sep­tem­ber 30, 2020.

Lennox Pe­tro­le­um sought to de­lay the rul­ing by ap­ply­ing for a stay of ex­e­cu­tion, but the Court of Ap­peal dis­missed the ap­pli­ca­tion, in­di­cat­ing lit­tle mer­it in the ap­peal.

Still, the work­ers said pay­ments nev­er came. Demon­stra­tions fol­lowed, in­clud­ing out­side the CEO’s res­i­dence. The OW­TU ac­cused Lennox of breach­ing the court or­der and filed a com­plaint for non-com­pli­ance. The com­pa­ny claimed to be seek­ing clar­i­fi­ca­tion, but the union main­tained the rul­ing was un­am­bigu­ous and en­force­able.

Yes­ter­day, a small group vis­it­ed the court, seek­ing an up­date and a new hear­ing date. They left emp­ty-hand­ed.

“It’s tak­ing too long,” Alexan­der said, adding that re­peat­ed at­tempts to en­gage Lennox’s le­gal team have failed.

He said none of the 22 men has worked on a rig since 2017, de­spite be­ing trained, cer­ti­fied, and ex­pe­ri­enced in off­shore op­er­a­tions.

“We all have our bills. We want to con­tin­ue with our lives. But we were black­list­ed—nev­er got a day’s work since. They’ll take your ré­sumé, and that’s where it ends.”

Low turnout at court, Alexan­der ex­plained, was due to fi­nan­cial hard­ship. “Some men couldn’t even af­ford to come. One of us died. An­oth­er was dis­abled. Some are cut­ting grass, clean­ing drains, or mix­ing con­crete to sur­vive.”

Shawn Cayenne, an­oth­er for­mer work­er, said the com­pa­ny failed to ap­pear at a sched­uled court date in De­cem­ber 2023. Since then, the work­ers have made mul­ti­ple vis­its to the court seek­ing up­dates—with no res­o­lu­tion.

“It’s been a year and sev­en months now, and we’re still wait­ing on a judg­ment. How come this mat­ter can’t be called yet?” he asked.

Cayenne said they have al­so tried to speak with the OW­TU and the at­tor­ney rep­re­sent­ing them, but progress has stalled.

“Poor peo­ple have to stay poor in Trinidad, then,” he said.