Some will have to suffer

DESPITE Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley's commitment, in his address to the nation back in September, that all Petrotrin workers will be "taken care of" as the company is to fold, company chairman Wilfred Espinet yesterday expressed his regret that 600 temporary staff workers will not be included in the company's $2.6 billion severance package for employees.

"Some will suffer," Espinet said, "because we cannot develop a formula based on feeling sorry for people." As temporary workers, who gave yeoman service, hundreds at over ten years, yesterday vented their frustration and rage over being left in the dark, approximately 60 riggers called the compensation formula, "grossly unfair."

They told Newsday they laboured hard in Petrotrin and some had been on the company's temporary employment payroll for 27 consecutive years. Now they will be going home tomorrow with not even a single, red dollar in compensation from the company.

In all, 1,100 temps, whose tenure is five years or less, will benefit from the severance package while 600, who have worked for over five years - some as long as 27 years - with the company, have been left out in the cold. Petrotrin's formula to pay temps is: 150 days per year over the last five years.

When Newsday visited the Pointe-a-Pierre refinery yesterday, several temps said they felt abandoned by the company and government. Many had their TD4 slips which showed they made over 900 National Insurance Scheme (NIS) payments while in Petrotrin's employ, some since 1991. The average worker, after 30 years of service, makes 700 such payments.

Robin Rose, 47, worked between eight and ten months every year from 1991 to 2003. Showing his letter of employment dated June 1, 1995, he said, "I worked as a rigger and I usually got called out for eight months, sometimes nine months a year. I started in 1991, but Petrotrin started using computers in 1995 which is why my letter of employment is date for that year. They say I have nothing to get because in the last five years, I didn't make 750 days. So I go home with nothing," Rose said.

Such is the fate of fellow riggers Roger Mitchell, 49, a rigger for 28 years, Dexter Applewhite, 56, who started work in 1980 and Nigel Jaggessar, 51, who started in 1987. Jagessar said he worked at the refinery for 31 years with continuous service of between eight and nine months each year. Another rigger, David Austin, 58, began in 1994.

A rigger's weekly wage according to documents shown to Newsday was $4,167, plus Cost of Living Allowance. Newsday contacted chairman Espinet and told him of the temps' rage over the formula used to exclude them from being compensated.

Newsday told Espinet of the temps' criticism that the formula failed to take into account such long-standing employees who did not secure enough regular work within the past five years to chalk up the 750 hours needed, to qualify.

"We had to develop a formula based on something and surely the main consideration is availability of funds which we are working with. Some will not feel comfortable; some will suffer.

"You have to remember that any formula used will have limits. We will never have sufficient funds to come up with a formula to include everyone," Espinet said.

Asked whether any formula by which public funds are dispensed should not stand up to scrutiny as being fair, Espinet contended that all the company's temporary workers must accept that their status did not lend to benefits.

"And therefore, the company is under no obligation. If we came up with a formula and all of the temporary workers cannot benefit, it is not because the formula was unfair," Espinet said.

Oil refining started in Pointe-a-Pierre in 1917. On Sunday, the flame which billowed continuously from a pipe in the centre of the refinery for the past 101 years, was extinguished, marking the turning of a chapter in TT's history.