OWTU gearing up for court battle

ABOUT 75 percent of Petrotrin’s 5,000 plus employees have collected termination letters while the remaining 25 percent had letters sent by registered mail.

That was the response from a member of Petrotrin’s transition team to several emailed queries from Newsday yesterday. All questions received short and crisp answers.

“All permanent employees were invited to collect their termination letters and about 75 per cent of them did so.

Letters that were not collected by October 15, were sent to the relevant employees by registered mail,” the transition team stated in its email.

This would have included OWTU president general Ancel Roget and the union’s general secretary Richard Lee who received their letters via courier on October 16.

Asked whether the two companies, Paria Fuel Trading Company and Heritage Petroleum company limited have begun receiving applications for advertised positions, the answer was, “Yes.”

Asked when the new employees are expected to begin work and whether these are all contract positions, the response was: “the new companies will start operation on December 1. The positions advertised for thus far are permanent positions.

Is the start-up date of November 1 still viable for the new companies? “The scheduled start date for the new companies is December 1, 2018 and we continue to work towards that,” the transition team said.

The new companies’ directors are Wilfred Espinet and Reynold Ajodhasingh who were appointed as “directors of the new companies for the purpose of having them incorporated.”

Meanwhile, OWTU chief education and research officer Ozzi Warwick yesterday said the union is preparing for its appearance before the Industrial Court today.

“The case is tomorrow (Tuesday), Wednesday and Thursday. We would have filed our submissions already so it is just to go to court on Tuesday,” Warwick told Newsday. Warwick said both himself and Roget gave witness statements and are expected to be at the court for the hearing.

“The main thing is the case at this point in time and of course we have been talking regularly to the workers. But let’s see what the judgment says. We have to hear what the court has to say.”

On October 1, the OWTU filed a complaint in the Industrial Court alleging the commission of an Industrial Relations Offence (IRO) by Petrotrin.

This complaint alleges the state-owned oil company acted in violation of Section 40(1) of the Industrial Relations Act Chapter 88:01 (the Act) by “failing in good faith to treat and to enter into negotiation with the Union for the purpose of collective bargaining”.