In spite of a 50 per cent shortfall in what they were asking for and what they eventually settled on to avert strike action, Petrotrin workers rallied around their president general Ancel Roget yesterday evening, in a victory celebration, as they clapped and sang spiritual union songs outside the Pointe-a-Pierre refinery.
Straight from the Port- of- Spain marathon meeting with Labour Minister Jennifer Baptiste Primus and Petrotrin officials, Roget arrived at the refinery around 6 pm where workers had been waiting from the break of dawn, ready to enter into a 90-day planned strike for increased wages for the collective bargaining periods, from 2011 to 2014.
In a fiery 45-minute address to his membership, as he sought to explain that the five per cent was an interim settlement and negotiations will continue until February 28, Roget thanked the workers for their overwhelming support which he said tipped the scales in their favor in bringing about a resolution.
He instructed them to go back to work from the 10 pm shift and to work hard to rebuild the company. He also ordered those on the 7 am shift to walk back in to the refinery this morning, arm in arm, just as they walked out on Monday morning.
He and other members of the executive will visit each Petrotrin main offices in Point Fortin, Santa Flora, Penal, Forest Reserve to update workers on the resolution. Roget told the workers, and got their affirmation, that their union had achieved a major victory, “when one considers that the company was saying they had no money and could not afford a wage increase.
“The moment they were faced with strike action, they coughed up five per cent,” he said cautioning them to be vigilant in the event there is any sticking point on behalf of the management to close that negotiation by the end of February.
He said strike is not something they like to use, but asserted it is a legal option they can use when necessary.
The union boss reminded workers of the injustice meted out to them over the period when everybody else got except them. He said because of their contribution, Petrotrin would have contributed some $15 plus billion from 2010 to 2015 according to the TTI report.
Roget made the point that while everybody was beating up on Petrotrin and condemning it for being a drain on the economy, “they are forgetting that not to long ago, Petrotrin would have been contributing enormously to the national treasury and that contribution could never have been possible if workers had not been at work and working hard.”
Roget left the meeting and headed back up to the Industrial Court at Port- of -Spain last night to conclude the conciliation procedure.