National Petroleum Marketing Company (NP) chairman Sahid Hosein said the Oilfield Workers Trade Union (OWTU) has to change the old paradigm of confrontation every Monday morning and to stop the traditional Butler and George Weekes method of battle with employers.
He said he believes in the tripartite system to bring about a peaceful and reasonable resolution.
Fielding questions from the media about the lessons learnt from the Petrotrin impasse which led to a short-lived strike last Monday, Hosein said NP has found itself in a similar situation.
“Currently, we are in the same position as Petrotrin was, in that we have (collective)agreements outstanding for 2011-2014 and 2014 - 2017. The 2011-2014 agreement is at the Industrial Court at this time.”
OWTU served strike notice on Petrotrin which had initially offered zero per cent for two periods starting 2011 and Government weighing the cost of a 90-day shutdown as opposed to an increase, offered an interim five per cent wage increase for the first period of agreement.
Another hearing for the NP matter is in March. Hosein congratulated OWTU for its role in settling the impasse and said they are hoping for a similar outcome at NP without the threat of strike.
“We expect, being reasonable people, we would get together and come up with reasonable initiatives to ensure the company continues to survive.”
Speaking at the re opening of the CNG supply NP Carousel Service Station, San Fernando on Wednesday, Hosein referred to NGC Group chairman, Gerry Brooks’ statements about the reengineering of Petrotrin, and said this is exactly what they are doing at NP - seeking to reengineer the operations to make it more efficient and not fall in the same trap as debt riddled Petrotrin.
“These companies (state owned) have suffered from years of neglect or an inability to make the right decisions to take them forward. We have no alternative at this point in time.
“Within a short period we would be having a new structure, we would be having different initiatives to make us a lot more efficient.”
Hosein said one of the issues they have to deal with is productivity as well as cost, because if they have to withdraw their business operation that would be a serious matter.
“I believe in the tripartite arrangement. I told the union already, we no longer have to fight Butler battle or George Weekes battle, (in reference to the late trade unionist Tubal Uriah Buzz Butler and former OWTU PG Weekes), in the sense that we own a lot of the infrastructure and companies in this country.
“We are now the owners and therefore, as responsible people, we need to sit around the table, collectively, and see how we can bring about better terms and conditions and profitability back to these companies.
“We cannot be able to continue that old paradigm of confrontation every Monday morning. We own the thing now, therefore we sit down, there is no guarantee we will always agree, but there are a lot of issues we can agree on and it has to start from the understanding that we are in charge now. This is ours and the actions we take are either going to cause us to rise or continue to sink.”
Hosein acknowledge that mistakes have been made, but said they are working together with other state enterprises like NGC in the CNG service supply initiative, and others to clean up the inaction and mistakes of the past.