OWTU demands action to correct management problems at Petrotrin

The Oilfield Workers Trade Union (OWTU) is demanding action to correct problems management of the state-owned petroleum company, saying the board led by former Panday cabinet minister Lindsay Gillette has made “very little or no change at all” since its appointment.

On Tuesday Petrotrin workers shut down several divisions of the company to dramatise their protest and joined colleagues at the Pointe-a-Pierre refinery for a mass membership meeting in front the company’s administration building.

OWTU President General Ancel Roget addressed members as heavily-armed police officers stood guard.

“Today we are sending a powerful signal to management that they are not prepared to stand idly by and collect pay and to see the company continue to go down the drain.

“We boldly, without apology, call for the removal of all of those who would have led us to this point and we are prepared as a union to defend that,” Roget declared.

He said Petrotrin "is not Lindsay Gillette’s own. It was not Malcolm Jones’ own and that is why we had raised objections when he (Gillette) was appointed because we felt that he would have done absolutely nothing or precious little for this company. We are vindicated thus far.”

He added, “Today we are speaking out against Kamla Persad-Bissessar’s appointment to the board, who is Lindsay Gillette. We are against that because of what has been done so far to this company...

“It could not be that it was wrong in 2010 to have a Malcolm Jones and his team taking the company down the drain to the cost of billions of dollars in cost overruns and that we continue today with a board that seems to be in some sort of unholy alliance with the current management.”