OWTU SPEAKS 2007 06 08

Welcome to our Virtual Village!! Where would you like to go first?

Good evening ardent listeners to this programme and welcome to the OWTU Speaks.

It is ludicrous – the way that the captains of our State enterprises attempt to hide the inefficiencies and questionable mismanagement activities which continue to bedevil these state owned companies.

Let us examine Petrotrin which it is claimed, is being strangled by an astronomical wage bill.

We wish to state categorically that the rope around Petrotrin’s neck and the chains which bound the Company’s feet are not the wage bill that would emerge if a proper distillation of Petrotrin’s spending is done. Indeed, what Petrotrin pays its employees, baring a few top executives and selected consultants, will be found to be below the amounts effected for comparator positions in certain industry leaders operating in Trinidad.

We have long said that Petrotrin’s problem has been that it was over managed and under led. When we thought that the new captains would be challenged by and produce a refined response to our statement, what we have so far encountered is a regression to a neo-colonial brand of bossmanism. Its every uttering and when physically less vibrant, its feeble mutterings are always with a good dose of anti-worker, anti-union prescription. That Petrotrin’s CEO warns of ‘job cuts’ emphasizes the point that the more things change and are exchanged, the more they remain the same.

There were heavy job cuts in 1995 through 2000. Indeed, Selective Voluntary Separation of employees continue to this day at Petrotrin.

The employment level in 1995 was some 7, 4000 persons with a wage bill that represented 57% of operating costs, we were told by Management and political directorate. More than 45% of the workforce at all levels was separated and another 5-7% has been leaving each year on normal retirement. The depletion has caused astronomical growth in the use of contract labour and the rehiring of some retired Management and supervisory staff. These, combined with the many workovers and duplication occasioned by the use of fly by night contractors, the retention of multimillion dollar consultancies and a ridiculously high overtime bill which is now the norm – are some of the impacting factors on Petrotrin’s wage bill.

Petrotrin’s problem is not overstaffing nor is it an onerous wage bill. The problem is a management and leadership that is price aware but value insensitive – it quibbles over pennies and loses big on the dollars. Petrotrin’s problem is that its workers do not trust its management. Management’s double standards and its representatives’ double speak are the major retardants to all of its people having a common focus to the Company’s growth and success. The top of the Company is unaware of and insensitive to the real needs of the organization in developing a dynamism to propel it forward and secure a more competitive edge. A Job-organisation Review is only now being undertaken and each Management presentation has so far identified a requirement for additional staff and higher skilled personnel. These requirements emphasize the mismanagement which influenced the exodus of high quality staff and the cessation of company training and development programmes.

Executive Chairman and President operations please allow Petrotrin an opportunity to breathe and give us all a break!

Have a safe evening and enjoyable weekend T & T. I am Errol Mc Leod for OWTU Speaks.

OWTU SPEAKS 2007 06 11

Good Evening and welcome to the OWTU Speaks for sensible talk independent and objective views, and constructive criticisms.

Last week there was very wide coverage, in the Business Guardian, of expressions on Petrotrin’s State of Affairs and its upgrade to higher efficiency and competition in the market place by the Company’s two most senior executives.

It is regrettable that neither of the two gentlemen identified the Company’s human resources as any of the essential factors which would take the Country’s single largest state enterprise forward as a profitable, viable and resilient entity. It might well be that these bosses or energy czars if you wish, just do not know better and are visualizing a transformation from a present state that involves people to a future state which emphasizes new plants, machinery, equipment and systems and relegates living beings to casual secondary support mechanisms. If so, the struggle for local ownership and national control of the country’s major resources must be absent from the underpinnings – if there is any – that support the philosophy by which the Manning PNM cronies’ and carpetbaggers’ development trust is guided. They bare their emptiness without a hassle sometimes. They bare their emptiness without a hassle sometimes. On the very important question of an Energy Mega Merger for instance, one of the bosses – sycophant of whoever occupies political office at the time – asserts that question of Mega Merger lays ultimately with who is in power. More than that, there is the suggestion of very scant regard for the Recognised Majority Union in the premises. Neither have we been put on the list of stakeholders to be invited to Merger talks this month. The OWTU

Might just have to make its own input to those deliberations when we address the masses at Charlie King Junction on June 19 – Butler Day 2007.

The post President operations at Petrotrin has become a sinecure – in industry jargon it is referred to as a ‘red circled’ job – personal to holder. When the incumbent goes, the job goes. As a sinecure, the position impacted nothing and emitted only a laissez-faire sanction so to speak – of anti union, anti-worker policies and positions formulated at other top levels of the organization. We are certain our view however that they will not be rid of the OWTU as the workers will rid of a neo-colonial black and 5-carat pale face anti-worker Executive management at the Petroleum Marketing Company of Trinidad and Tobago Limited.

The Union should factor into everything that Petrotrin does. And this should be done by invitation and not grudgingly after the Union makes a noise and protests. Intelligent and enlightened modern management is today effecting better business leadership by taking management to the shop floor and involving stakeholder representatives in corporate decision making – even at larger private sector entities. But, we guess that state enterprise business here is to be shrouded in secrecy as the private affairs of Prime Ministers and chairmen and insulated against penetration by men and women who will violate the political directorate’s rubicon in an approach to establishing the broader national and peoples’ interests.

More on Labour Day – June 19 – next week – in Fyzabad. Today we also extend condolences to the family of John Commissiong. Junior was the OWTU’s first Education Officer appointed as such some way back in the late 1960’s before moving on to other ventures in 1970. We are saddened by his passing and our President General, Central Executive and General Council hereby convey deepest sympathy.

I am Errol Mc Leod for the OWTU Speaks.

OWTU SPEAKS 2007-06-13

Good evening and welcome to the OWTU Speaks. An objective examination of the stink scandal at San Fernando General Hospital will reveal further justification for our saying that in our local health services, it is ‘money or your life.’ After all these years of our paying health surcharge, not to mention the hundreds of billions of energy revenue dollars that continue to be generated – all we get is another green verbed, slurred speech public relations campaign led by a Health Minister who quite frankly, would do better at cutting cloth to make shrouds for the bodies whose lives our hospital systems failed to sustain. Whom would they now dismiss for the abominable situation at San Fernando General? What measurement factors do we employ in determining the size and patients’ accommodation of our hospitals? We are a population of less than 1.3 m. There is no known epidemic except official malfeasance that has suddenly befallen us. How come a shortage of beds and linens at the hospital? Some ordinary generalist at making excuses for the inefficient and ineffective executive branch of government listed road accidents as being responsible for overcrowding at the hospital! What arrant bull crap nonsense is this miscommunication specialist spewing for public consumption? Do they think us all sick and stupid as false prophet Benny Hinn describes one of his disciples? Do they know that with all of the explosions and maiming taking place there, there is no overcrowding at the Hospitals in Baghdad?

And does the Communications specialist recall the crisis two years ago when the doctors withdrew their enthusiasm, and, to avoid overcrowding and a backlog of cases, patients were accommodated at the private health institutions to be treated there by same practitioners with renewed enthusiasm and it greater expense.

It is so simple to discern when the government as employer will sometimes spend more to break Unions and Peoples’ organizations than it will ordinarily take to ameliorate the conditions against which the struggle is embarked upon the first case. Put another way – ‘some employees among them – government – will cause the whole system to deteriorate even collapse and everybody loses – just to make the point as to who is boss and emperor. They don’t know that there are cases of the emperor emerging without clothes! One word to the wise and she will perhaps advise the foolish. The conditions in this country are replete with reasons and good justification for change at the upcoming polls. The doubt haunting many people however is the conundrum wherein those who are seeking office are at best offering exchanges only. One does not feel confident choosing between the basket of half clean linen, the tub of half washed clothes and the bundle of dirty bedding that are being offered. And something new and without baggage and which must be profound and not opportunistic, if it could not do all of the tremendous work that is required to capture elections- winnable support this time might only confuse the equation and make it easier for them that thinketh of an anointment to rule. The denial of adequate accommodation and services at San Fernando General is but one instance of the mismanagement and improper organization of the public health sector. With all of the industrialization taking place on the South West peninsula, we are still without a modern hospital facility complete with a necessary Burns Unit in Point Fortin. As the election campaign heats up and manifestos are written we may hear past promises repeated but in these days of public denials and lies we could well hear one say, ‘I knoweth not of any promise’ and the other – ‘They lieth on me, I banketh not a cent overseas.’ And the poor and ailing must pick up their bed and walk! Have a safe evening! I am Errol Mc Leod for OWTU Speaks.

OWTU SPEAKS 2007-06-18

Good evening and welcome to the OWTU Speaks. As we examine the reality of our Caribbean 70 years after June 19, 1937, we recognize that the Agenda set out for us has yet to be achieved. Thus, while it is true that we have won formal political independence, there are many territories that are still colonies and at the same time supranational institutions such as the WTO – World Trade Organisation – make a mockery of our sovereignty. While it is true that many gains have been made in areas such as education, health care and housing, a very significant number of our citizens live in conditions of poverty. While it is true that there has been economic growth, neo liberal policies are resulting in ever increasing inequity. Our societies are at the cross-roads. Post independence institutions – formal and informal- are in a state of collapse. In many of our countries the resulting vacuum is being filled by criminal gangs fuelled by the drug trade. The gains made by years of struggle to humanize our space are being rolled back by the barbarism of neo liberalism with its emphasis on the culture of violence and the placing of individual interests over that of the collective.

The Oilfields Workers’ Trade Union believes that the occasion of the 70^th Anniversary of the June 19^th Strike and the birth of the modern trade union movement is an appropriate moment to engage in a collective retrospection and at the same time renew and regenerate ourselves for the task of completing the agenda for transformation set for us by the patriots of 1937.

These were some of the considerations which energized our initiative in the OWTU to call a Regional Conference which, since last Friday, has been giving us such an opportunity.

We invited Trade Unions and other social organizations and political activists from across the Caribbean and certain Latin American countries. We have had in attendance thirty five guests/participants from Suriname, Dominica, Grenada, Barbados, Aruba, Antigua, St. Kitts, Guyana, St. Vincent, Nicaragua, Venezuela and Cuba and among our local trade union, NGO’s and CBO’s representatives.

The conference adopted the theme ‘Renewal and Regeneration at 70 - Carrying forward the 1930’s Agenda”, and it has so far examined the neo liberal Capitalist Agenda – Understanding the Trade Agenda – WTO, EPA, Bilaterals; Alternatives to the neo liberal Agenda, Resistance and the struggle for Another World; Challenges for the Labour Movement organizing against EPA, WTO and the Global Agenda of Capital. The Regional Integration Agenda – CSME, CCJ; Peoples Ownership of Water, Gas and Oil; the Democratic Agenda – How to change the Dictator, the crisis of the past independence state among other issues.

Our Regional Conference ended one hour ago with positive vibes and great enthusiasm to carry forward the Agenda of Solidarity for social justice, equity and peace. We have begun a process of realignment to the philosophical positions articulated by our earlier West Indian labour leaders whose vision of a Caribbean Nation was clear.

Tomorrow we celebrate them and the heroes and heroines of the Great anti colonial strike and popular insurrection by the people of 1937. Our Caribbean and Latin American Comrades, Sisters and Brothers now visiting will join us in our great march from Harris Village to Fyzabad in the spirit of Tubal Uriah Buzz Butler, hero of the peoples struggle and Father of the nation.

One people, one struggle, one Caribbean

Unity, social Justice, Equity and peace

Forward Ever, Backward Never

I am Errol Mc Leod for the OWTU Speaks.

OWTU SPEAKS 2007 06 20

Good evening and welcome to sensible talk, fearless and independent expressions, objective views and biting criticisms – welcome to the OWTU Speaks! I found the placard carried by a female member of the Communication Workers’ Union yesterday to be the most significant and profound among all the visual depictions of the struggle of power on the streets. The particular placard read “Stand Up For Something or You will Die For Nothing”. It is indeed a most powerful message to them who engage in vituperative and platitudinous chatter around the real matters and things affecting the people.

I understood the quotation to be – ‘Stand for Something or Fall for Anything’, but the message is doubtlessly the same. What do we stand for? The truth in our response to this question could only be measured in the tangible outcomes of joint action in which we must engage. What we stand for is never fully understood nor seen in elusive or even visionary verbal half-expressions.

Yesterday thousands of us, including the few opportunistic and scampish culture-scalpers for an easy buck and hollow fame, marched behind separate banners and flags, affected adversely by common neo-liberal anti-worker policies of a common adversary and local decision making that excludes a democratic labour involvement. How do we respond to these? – how do we decisively respond to these if not by united joint action? Surely, no sterile and recriminatory argument in any room or chamber will bring about unity or the tangible benefits which organized united action will wrath to the Trade Unions, labour and the working classes and poor in our country.

Too many of us, we know, the question as to ‘who we stand for’ is easier to answer than it is to demonstrate what we stand for! You see, the latter is always the more profound but the former is not necessarily carried by an underpinning of any wholesome philosophy.

Two days ago on the eve of Labour Day a former Trade Union leader and Prime Minister of this country was reported to have said that ‘unity within the labour movement will not be achieved as long as its leaders continue to seek favours from the ruling PNM Government while neglecting to fight for improved wages and working conditions of workers’. Now, that is so true, and I can see like the sun will shine if it does not rain to-morrow – I can see all our Union leaders meeting in a room at Crowne Plaza tomorrow and emerging – after much cussing and kissing – emerging with an ‘accord’ that says much but identifies little action against a government and employers from whom they seek favours and with whom they make secret deals. The OWTU will take no part in that.

What the former trade union leader and Prime Minister did not say however – perhaps he does not know or remember – is that such trade union leaders as are guilty of what he charges are the same ones who sought and gained favours of the UNC government some few years back.

They refused to engage in any action which was perceived to be against their government and party even as the head of government and party described workers as criminals and threatened that some trade union leaders among other social activists would not escape unscathed.

If only our leaders would remember when, consider what and de-emphasize the who -everybody will be better off in the long run.

I am Errol Mc Leod for OWTU Speaks!

OWTU SPEAKS 2007 06 22

Good evening and welcome to sensible talk, independent and objective expressions and biting criticisms – welcome to the OWTU Speaks!

I knew that it was hardly unlikely that the inveterate posing as community representatives and forced ripe cultural impresarios would remain quiet on the exposure of their obscene opportunism a couple days ago. They were stung you see! They did not imagine that only the gullible and bacchanalian few would see masquerade and nakedness as the prime basis of every Trinbagonian cultural activity. They will never see the culture of the struggle which 1937 waged for respect, dignity and self determination. They would never understand the cultural influences which attended the defiance against white colonial exploitation and the solemn but celebratory wake for Charlie King who thought that he could be a hero of that then brutal colonial subjugation.

And so prejudiced were they that not a tear was shed for nor compensation offered to Charlie King’s family for his standing up in defence of the masquerade that was the white South Africans’ treatment of black people.

We insist without equivocation that any cultural aspect of the 1937 Butler Riots which we should want to pass on to our younger generations ought to be those aspects of religious determination, of assertiveness, selfhood, of being unafraid to stand up for something even in the face of death – such strength which will have one say – ‘give me liberty or death.”

Jan and wine, everyday jour vert, nakedness, meaningless jump up in the streets are not culture. They are the depravity of the culturally convoluted and asinine.

This is a mini piece today but in any case we should hardly need much more to deal with those who are nasty, brutish and short.

Have a safe and enjoyable weekend Trinidad and Tobago. I am Errol Mc Leod for OWTU Speaks.

OWTU SPEAKS 2007 06 29

Good evening and welcome to OWTU Speaks. We reach out to all those 1,191 students who must repeat the SEA exams. We embrace all of them, their teachers and their parents and invite the greatest of our understanding of the pressure that they must feel. We have no doubt that they will perform admirably next time.

Well as for the stars this time around – there could be no over emphasizing how proud we are of their stellar performances. The three (3) little princesses – Meagan De Labastide, Sushma Karim and Eshanna Maharaj – who tied for first place in the exam, are the toast of the national community today and throughout the weekend. Congratulations to you three, your teachers and your parents. Keep on excelling – let nothing retard your reach for excellence in all that you do.

Congratulations too to all the other successful children. Keep on keeping on and please know that you are the future on whom so much will depend. You are sure to succeed if you remain well focused, clear vision and with purposeful application.

The OWTU Speaks dedicate today’s edition to all the children, our youth and young adults and especially our great achievers among them.

With determination and commitment to succeeding push forward ever and backward never.

Have an enjoyable, safe and peaceful weekend.