Commentary: Time for workers to end Roget's irresponsibility

I said it before and am saying it again. Members of the Oilfield Workers' Trade Union (OWTU) should ask their leader, Ancel Roget, why he is determined to cause chaos and hurt the very people he claims to represent.

This week there was panic buying of gas as Roget called a work stoppage at Petrotrin over unfilled vacancies, union demands for variable pay, and concern about a bunkering contract. 

The unnecessary strike has cost the state energy company nearly one billion dollars. And the problem is far from being solved. The result is that Roget's actions are putting Petrotrin's future in peril, thereby hurting the workers.

But that was only one part of the story. He went further to cause national panic and disrupt the lives of ordinary citizens. When gas ran out at some filling stations early in the week, Petrotrin's management, the energy ministry and National Petroleum (NP) all gave the assurance that sufficient supplies of gas were available.

However, Roget made a point of insisting that all the officials were telling lies and that there was indeed cause to panic. "Fill up", he declared, claiming that no one had any contingency plans to supply fuel to gas stations.

It turned out that he was wrong and the officials were right. Yet through his irresponsible pronouncements in the media he caused a mad rush and panic. And the question that we need to ask today is what did Roget achieve other than causing inconvenience and aggravation to citizens.

Roget needed some face time and the media obliged; he got the headlines to advance his personal vendetta against the People's Partnership administration. 

Then on Friday he was grandstanding again, leading a march in Port of Spain and threatening to shut down the country unless government gives the unions everything they want.

It is this same bullying that he used to dupe David Abdullah to pick a fight with the government and then pull the Movement For Social Justice (MSJ) out of the governing coalition, depriving labour of its seat at the table with policy makers. 

It is clear that Roget is on a selfish mission to cause instability in the country. And he is doing it in the most immoral manner by using unsuspecting workers to fight his irresponsible war. There is no coincidence in his timing; Roget carefully chose the week that school reopened to try to cause the most chaos.

People are not stupid. They would put two and two together and conclude that it is Roget, not Petrotrin, to blame for what happened this week and for the loss the company - and by extension its workers and the country - will suffer as a result of this publicity stunt.

There never was any cause to call a strike especially considering the fact that they just three months ago, on the eve of a threatened Carnival shutdown, the company settled for a nine per cent wage increase. There is a grievance mechanism within the company and a responsible union leader would have used this instead of causing a shutdown. 

Workers must call out Roget and stop responding with a mob mentality if they truly want to protect their interests. 

This is a man who has said over and over that he intends to bring down the government. So far he has failed to shut down the country as he had hoped and if workers start paying attention to real issues they would tell Roget to stop the nonsense now and start representing them.

Jai Parasram | 08 September 2012