OWTU: Some NP trucks lack emergency brakes

 Ricky Benny  

Photo by - Marvin Hamilton
Ricky Benny Photo by - Marvin Hamilton

OILFIELD Workers Trade Union (OWTU) first vice president Ricky Benny alleged that NP fuel trucks could pose a hazard to public safety due to a lack of emergency brakes to supplement their normal brakes.

At the OWTU office at Henry Street, Port of Spain, on Tuesday, the union held a briefing to discuss major health and safety issues pertaining to some recently acquired fuel trucks known as road tank wagons (RTWs.)

Also at the head table were senior labour relations officer for the OWTU at NP, Valerie Philip-Paul, plus NP branch president Walter Jules.

Benny said a batch of recently-acquired NP fuel trucks had not been fitting with a particular valve to enable their emergency brakes. He asked why in these times of low sales was NP hiring private contractors to transport fuel, rather than rely on NP’s drivers?

Benny alleged NP was breaching its own agreements, even as he recalled Industrial Court head Deborah Felix-Thomas as warning companies not to encroach on workers’ rights during the pandemic.

“Lots of contractors’ vehicles are in a deplorable condition. We’ll tell the Transport Commissioner about their ‘unroadworthiness’ and have them inspected.”

Benny complained that one NP fleet at Pointe-a-Pierre now consists of six drivers and just five trucks, as he warned that any sharing of trucks could facilitate the spread of covid19 and do ruin that whole fleet. He urged the fleet be given an extra truck for the extra driver.

He said one of the six drivers was the OWTU’s NP branch president, Walter Jules, but he had allegedly been singled out to be moved from his post in an “attack” that now required a legal response.

“Jules said he had found out about the lack of brakes and told his executive. “We have trucks on the road not equipped with emergency brakes.”

While he wanted the Transport Commissioner to inspect these trucks, especially due to the threat they pose in carrying large amounts of oil, Jules said the company has said some workers must be sent home.

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