Con­fi­dent they will win the bid to op­er­ate the old Pointe-a-Pierre Re­fin­ery, the Oil­fields Work­ers’ Trade Union (OW­TU) is now prepar­ing to in­ter­view ap­pli­cants for po­si­tions in its new com­pa­ny.

Ad­dress­ing trade union­ists at the base of the Mar­cus Gar­vey stat­ue along Har­ris Prom­e­nade, San Fer­nan­do yes­ter­day, OW­TU pres­i­dent gen­er­al An­cel Ro­get said that the Pa­tri­ot­ic En­er­gies and Tech­nolo­gies Com­pa­ny Ltd (Pa­tri­ot­ic) which was in­cor­po­rat­ed by the OW­TU this year, will be­gin re­cruit­ment soon.

“We are in the process com­rades and we have ad­ver­tised for work­ers to get ready to work. We can­not wait un­til we get the as­set, then to go and ad­ver­tise and get work­ers ready. We have al­ready passed phase one of that process, as com­rades would know, and so when we opened up and we ad­ver­tised for po­si­tions, (there were) over some 4,000 ap­pli­ca­tions for po­si­tions.

“That is the state of the econ­o­my here to­day. That is the state of hope­less­ness. Over 4,000 per­sons ap­plied for jobs. We went through all of them. When I say we, I am re­port­ing on be­half of those who did it… I am ad­vised that ap­pli­cants were asked to send in their re­sumes and to have them ver­i­fied. That has been done and that process is go­ing to be com­plet­ed by May 5. Af­ter that process has been com­plet­ed, the next step, we will be call­ing for in­di­vid­u­als for in­ter­views,” Ro­get said.

He said it was trans­par­ent and on the ba­sis of com­mit­ment, com­pe­tence, ex­pe­ri­ence and qual­i­fi­ca­tions, ap­pli­cants will be hired. He called it the dif­fer­ence be­tween Pa­tri­ot­ic and Petrotrin, as he said the for­mer com­pa­ny’s prob­lem was al­ways po­lit­i­cal in­ter­fer­ence in its man­age­ment. It was wel­comed news for many of the ter­mi­nat­ed Petrotrin work­ers who trekked through the city’s streets in ob­ser­vance of In­ter­na­tion­al Work­ers’ Day.

Sev­er­al of them who gath­ered in their OW­TU shirts at the union’s Para­mount Build­ing head­quar­ters said that since they were fired last No­vem­ber when Petrotrin shut down, they have not been able to find em­ploy­ment. Ro­get said that the union was sat­is­fied that it made the best bid for the moth­balled re­fin­ery and is ready and wait­ing to put the as­sets back in­to the hands of cit­i­zens.

“I guar­an­tee you, com­rades, that no­body, ab­solute­ly no­body, whether in Trinidad and To­ba­go, the re­gion or the world, will en­sure that the peo­ple of Trinidad & To­ba­go, ben­e­fit from the ac­qui­si­tion of those as­sets.”

These ben­e­fits, he said, would in­clude a bet­ter qual­i­ty of fu­el for ve­hi­cles, in­clud­ing gas for fish­er­men. Ro­get al­so told mem­bers that all who stood with the OW­TU will be the ones who will ben­e­fit. On the oth­er hand, he said there was ab­solute­ly no way that they would fight for those who fought against the union.

Ear­li­er on, lead­ers of the Joint Trade Union Move­ment ad­dressed work­ers ahead of the march, with many of them call­ing for uni­ty among trade unions, es­pe­cial­ly in its fight against the gov­ern­ment’s han­dling of labour is­sues. With a pro­pos­al cur­rent­ly be­fore the gov­ern­ment to in­crease NIS con­tri­bu­tion and in­crease the age of pen­sion, gen­er­al sec­re­tary of the Postal Work­ers’ Union (TTP­WU) David Forbes warned that it will not be ac­cept­ed.

“Keep your hands off pen­sion­ers,” Forbes said.

In call­ing for uni­ty, Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Work­ers’ Union (CWU) gen­er­al sec­re­tary Clyde El­der said that peo­ple will con­tin­ue to be “suck­ers for pun­ish­ment” un­til they re­alise that the gov­ern­ment needs the labour force.

“With­out us, there can be no them,” El­der said. 

As an es­ti­mat­ed 1,500-2,000 union mem­bers walked through the streets of San Fer­nan­do, there were store work­ers, pedes­tri­ans and mo­torists who ex­pressed sup­port for them. The march in­clud­ed mem­bers of the OW­TU, CWU, TTP­WU, Bank­ing and In­sur­ance Gen­er­al Work­ers’ Union, Con­trac­tors and Gen­er­al Work­ers’ Union, In­dus­tri­al, Gen­er­al and San­i­ta­tion Work­ers’ Union, T&T Uni­fied Teach­ers As­so­ci­a­tion, Es­tate Po­lice As­so­ci­a­tion and the Move­ment for So­cial Jus­tice.

The mes­sage by the union on the streets was clear: “Both PNM and UNC have failed, it is time to kick them out.” There were even calls for a labour rev­o­lu­tion like those of the 1930s and 1970s, which led to labour re­forms. How­ev­er, his­to­ry would show that both events in­volved vi­o­lence.