Unilever Caribbean Lim­it­ed (UCL) says it is cur­rent­ly en­gag­ing the Oil­fields Work­ers' Trade Union with re­gards to the fu­ture of the com­pa­ny.

This comes fol­low­ing a protest to­day, in which the union said that some 285 work­ers were to be sent home.

In a state­ment is­sued just af­ter 4pm Wednes­day, the com­pa­ny said that "in the spir­it of se­cur­ing the long-term op­er­a­tions" of the com­pa­ny, it is cur­rent­ly re­view­ing its op­er­a­tions in the con­text of a weak do­mes­tic econ­o­my and a chal­leng­ing glob­al en­vi­ron­ment.

"For the past few weeks, UCL has been in dis­cus­sions with stake­hold­ers, in­clud­ing the Oil­fields Work­ers’ Trade Union (OW­TU) -— the rec­og­nized ma­jor­i­ty union for work­ers em­ployed by the com­pa­ny — about the fu­ture of UCL’s op­er­a­tions in Trinidad and To­ba­go. At this point no de­ci­sions have been tak­en on the fu­ture path of the com­pa­ny and work con­tin­ues as usu­al," the state­ment said.

The com­pa­ny said it is de­vel­op­ing strate­gies to re­spond to stiff com­pe­ti­tion from im­port­ed prod­ucts, de­pressed mar­ket con­di­tions and changes in con­sumer buy­ing pat­terns.

The state­ment added that UCL is op­ti­mistic that the con­tri­bu­tion of all stake­hold­ers would cul­mi­nate in de­ci­sions that would work to­ward sta­bil­is­ing the com­pa­ny.

"UCL looks for­ward to con­tin­u­ing en­gage­ment with the union and oth­er rel­e­vant par­ties in or­der to en­sure a mu­tu­al­ly ben­e­fi­cial out­come for all con­cerned," the state­ment added.

It said that over the last sev­er­al decades of op­er­a­tions in Trinidad and To­ba­go, UCL has con­tributed sig­nif­i­cant­ly to the so­cial, ed­u­ca­tion­al and cul­tur­al de­vel­op­ment of this coun­try, and is com­mit­ted to fair treat­ment of its work­ers in ac­cor­dance with es­tab­lished laws and In­dus­tri­al Re­la­tions best prac­tices.