There are con­flict­ing re­ports to­day on whether 285 Unilever work­ers will be sent home in a re­struc­tur­ing ex­er­cise at the com­pa­ny.

Yes­ter­day, the com­pa­ny’s recog­nised ma­jor­i­ty union, the Oil­fields Work­ers’ Trade Union, in­sist­ed the com­pa­ny planned to send home the work­ers as part of a re­struc­tur­ing ex­er­cise.

How­ev­er, in a re­lease on the is­sue Unilever Caribbean Ltd said no de­ci­sions had been tak­en on the fu­ture path of the com­pa­ny and work con­tin­ues as usu­al.

But in a protest out­side the Champs Fleurs-based com­pa­ny yes­ter­day, the union and work­ers staged a demon­stra­tion and told a dif­fer­ent tale.

“All ah we in lo­cal par­lance go­ing home,” OW­TU branch pres­i­dent told Guardian Me­dia.

McEach­nie said the com­pa­ny had been dis­hon­est and se­cre­tive about its next move, adding if it wasn’t for a slip-up by a man­ag­er back in June they would have nev­er known about the com­pa­ny’s plans. The union said up­on find­ing out they im­me­di­ate­ly spoke with se­nior man­age­ment and when the ques­tion of re­trench­ment was raised the com­pa­ny told the union this was not the case.

“At the very first meet­ing, they told us they want­ed to talk about the per­for­mance of the busi­ness. How­ev­er, the next week at the sec­ond meet­ing the com­pa­ny con­firmed that they were con­sid­er­ing re­struc­tur­ing,” McEach­nie said.

He added that the com­pa­ny could eas­i­ly re­move re­struc­tur­ing and re­place it with re­trench­ment be­cause from their in­for­ma­tion the in­ten­tion is to elim­i­nate the man­u­fac­tur­ing as­pect of the busi­ness.

But in its press re­lease, Unilever said the com­pa­ny is re­view­ing its op­er­a­tions in the con­text of a “weak do­mes­tic econ­o­my and a chal­leng­ing glob­al en­vi­ron­ment.” How­ev­er, McEach­nie coun­tered that this isn’t true, not­ing the com­pa­ny had made enor­mous prof­its in Trinidad and To­ba­go.

“They boast that mon­ey is not a prob­lem for them,” McEach­nie said.

He said the com­pa­ny’s suc­cess was due to the hard work of the 285 work­ers who may be on the bread­line and he is now ask­ing for con­sul­ta­tion on the im­pend­ing re­struc­tur­ing.

“We ask for no pref­er­en­tial treat­ment, we ask for no un­fair ben­e­fit, all we ask is that the com­pa­ny op­er­ate con­sis­tent with the things agreed to in the col­lec­tive agree­ment,” McEach­nie said.

On Sat­ur­day, Min­istry of Labour and Small En­ter­prise De­vel­op­ment Jen­nifer Bap­tiste-Primus said she had re­ceived sev­er­al re­trench­ment no­tices de­spite some im­prove­ment in the lo­cal econ­o­my. Bap­tiste-Primus en­cour­aged all par­ties to come to the ta­ble with an open mind and com­pro­mise.

“Some­times you have to give up what you want on the right hand to get a bet­ter ben­e­fit for your mem­bers,” Bap­tiste-Primus said.

Yes­ter­day, though, the union said if the com­pa­ny has to close its doors there are a num­ber of is­sues that need to be ad­dressed, such as pen­sion plans and pay-outs for those who were in­jured on the job.

“We have im­plored Unilever man­age­ment to be hon­est, we asked them to dis­cuss this,” McEach­nie said.

In 2017, Unilever Caribbean Ltd chair­man Pablo Gar­ri­do said the com­pa­ny saw no sign of eco­nom­ic re­cov­ery in T&T in the short term af­ter it suf­fered a 6.7 per cent de­cline in rev­enue in 2015 and prof­it af­ter tax fall to $44.5 mil­lion.

But the OW­TU be­lieves there are ways to save the man­u­fac­tur­ing sec­tor of the com­pa­ny and keep the 285 work­ers em­ployed.

“We ask that the com­pa­ny en­gage in gen­uine dis­cus­sions at avert­ing the clo­sure of this com­pa­ny,” McEach­nie said, call­ing for prop­er con­sul­ta­tion on all the is­sues go­ing for­ward.