Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

Gov­ern­ment isn’t “gallery­ing!”

Labour Min­is­ter Leroy Bap­tiste yes­ter­day de­nied that leg­is­la­tion al­low­ing the Oil­field Work­ers’ Trade Union (OW­TU) to be recog­nised in two suc­ces­sor com­pa­nies as the ma­jor­i­ty union for Petrotrin’s col­lec­tive agree­ments was be­ing done by the Gov­ern­ment to paci­fy the labour move­ment ahead of to­day’s Labour Day ob­ser­vances.

How­ev­er, Min­is­ter in Pub­lic Util­i­ties Clyde El­der, said the bill was to show work­ers when “we go to Fyz­abad for Labour Day” that the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) Gov­ern­ment has a gen­uine Work­ers Agen­da.

Bap­tiste, El­der and Min­is­ter in En­er­gy Ernesto Ke­sar spoke at the start of yes­ter­day’s Low­er House de­bate on the Mis­cel­la­neous Pro­vi­sions (Her­itage Pe­tro­le­um, Paria Fu­el Trad­ing and Guaracara Re­fin­ing Vest­ing) (Amend­ment) Bill, 2026.

All launched blis­ter­ing at­tacks on the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) for its re­struc­tur­ing of Petrotrin.

The bill al­lows Her­itage and Paria - Petrotrin’s suc­ces­sor com­pa­nies - to hold suc­ces­sor­ship to col­lec­tive agree­ments which ex­ist­ed in Petrotrin.

It al­lows the OW­TU to con­tin­ue be­ing recog­nised as the ma­jor­i­ty union in this re­gard.

The bill was passed with amend­ment by Gov­ern­ment votes. The 13 Op­po­si­tion PNM MPs ab­stained from vot­ing.

Bap­tiste said the bill was about en­sur­ing that work­ers are not dis­ad­van­taged by mea­sures over which they have no con­trol and seeks to of­fer the prin­ci­ple that work­ers don’t be­come “col­lat­er­al dam­age” in re­struc­tur­ing.

He ex­pressed pro­found ap­pre­ci­a­tion to Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar for her “un­wa­ver­ing com­mit­ment to so­cial jus­tice and work­er pro­tec­tion,” and al­so to the labour move­ment for bring­ing the is­sue to the fore. He al­so thanked the OW­TU for the bill.

Bap­tiste said he was grate­ful to lay the bill yes­ter­day af­ter its pas­sage in the Sen­ate on Wednes­day.

Ex­tend­ing Labour Day greet­ings, Bap­tiste said, “The de­bate on this bill isn’t a ploy in any way to paci­fy the labour move­ment on the eve of Labour Day, or to give them some­thing to gallery about (Fri­day) as one of the (Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tors) al­lud­ed to.”

He added, “This de­bate isn’t some to­ken ges­ture on the eve of Labour Day - that is the kind of emp­ty sym­bol­ism the PNM has per­fect­ed, hand­ing work­ers hol­low promis­es and cos­met­ic ges­tures while strip­ping them of their rights - their pol­i­cy has al­ways been one of mere hand­outs and gallery!”

Bap­tiste ac­cused the PNM of “union bust­ing” and “leg­isla­tive sab­o­tage” in not bring­ing such a bill when it held of­fice.

He said the UNC Gov­ern­ment isn’t here “to play pol­i­tics with work­ers’ dig­ni­ty.”

Laud­ing the OW­TU, he said whether one agreed with the union’s po­si­tion, there can be lit­tle dis­pute that the union played a his­toric role in the de­vel­op­ment of labour re­la­tions.

Bap­tiste said the bill didn’t seek to re­open de­bate on Petrotrin’s clo­sure/re­struc­tur­ing but sought to ad­dress crit­i­cal le­gal con­se­quences aris­ing from that.

“Above all, it af­firms this Gov­ern­ment’s un­wa­ver­ing com­mit­ment to the Work­ers Agen­da - fair­ness. jus­tice and dig­ni­ty in the work­place...We don’t treat work­ers as pawns in po­lit­i­cal games but as the back­bone of the econ­o­my and the soul of T&T.”

El­der al­so ex­tend­ed a spe­cial grat­i­tude to the Prime Min­is­ter and Cab­i­net and recog­nised OW­TU’s head and of­fi­cials present, for en­sur­ing the bill was brought on Labour Day eve.

“It’s not for talk­ing points at Labour Day, but it’s to show the work­ers when we go to Fyz­abad for Labour Day -as I will go-that this Gov­ern­ment has a gen­uine Work­ers Agen­da which we’re fur­ther­ing every sin­gle ses­sion of Par­lia­ment!”

Echo­ing sim­i­lar sen­ti­ments, En­er­gy Min­is­ter Ernesto Ke­sar said the leg­is­la­tion formed part of the Gov­ern­ment’s broad­er com­mit­ment to ad­dress­ing long­stand­ing con­cerns of for­mer Petrotrin work­ers.

Ke­sar said the UNC Gov­ern­ment is work­ing on ac­tion to en­sure for­mer Petrotrin work­ers re­ceive the land promised to them as com­pen­sa­tion when Petrotrin was re­struc­tured.

A for­mer Trin­mar work­er and OW­TU mem­ber, he said: “To­mor­row is Labour Day, and I’ll see some of our col­leagues (from PNM) there. The Op­po­si­tion Leader is al­ways in Fyz­abad, but the PNM has been an en­e­my to labour for the longest time...they ren­dered 5,000 work­ers job­less, and it’s the UNC that will have the re­fin­ery back up and work­ing.”