2006-05-17
Good Evening and Welcome to OWTU Speaks!
The situation is too destabilizing in effect, and much too demanding for voices of conscience, concern and commitment to country to remain silent. Not to say anything may misunderstandingly be translated to mean abandonment of the many causes and principles for which struggles were waged. To venture an opinion on the other hand, even an unbiased one, if that is truly possible – is to perhaps risk censure by those who might challenge that the subject of one’s comment is subjudice and that such may provoke one being called in contempt before the court. Well, we shan’t be desperated as others have become in recent times nor will we be reckless like the ones who will divide and mash up the country after their pilfering of the public till.
But we have chosen the risky option we have decided to venture an opinion. And we have decided too, to refuse any invitation by the Opposition to consult with them on issues on which they help to constitute the problem and with which they set out to make cheap politics. Leave us out! We won’t be identified with Ali Baba’s forty thieves and their known confederates, yet to be charged with acts of malfeasance against the State.
Great institutions are built over time by men and women of great character with commitment to noble ideals. It is the desecration by minions, scoundrels and commoners that taint the sanctity and ultimately bring such great institutions into disrepute.
Recently, a well known politician, before being convicted and fined, found the good sense to say “We must respect the law and the courts, for failure to respect the law and the courts will only lead to anarchy and chaos”.
Are we on the brink of that anarchy and chaos when men are alleged to have abrogated the rules, standards and covenants of office and institution – institution to which all others must look and appeal for respectfully regard for their rights, entitlements and freedoms; office which with dignity, ought to assure ordinary folk that their independence and democracy are looked after as prescribed in our constitution and the law. But commoners at the gate sometimes have long eyes yet they are not watchful but for their own ingratiation.
This commentator was once on a flight to London and encountered an important indeed very important personality in the Business Cabin of the Aircraft. Yes, my employer afforded me more than the most ordinary passage. The very important personality was the occupier of very significant office but his apparent gluttony for drink and his general lack of proper deportment was shameful and disgusting to say the least. He was taken aback to see me in the better appointed section of the liner and questioned loudly – What you doing here? How you came to be seated up here? My response was: I have class Sir and my organization and I have worked honestly for it.”
And really, class is class and it will never obfuscate the low classlessness in the sometimes very highly placed.
I am Errol Mc Leod for OWTU Speaks!
Have a Good Evening!
2006-05-19
Good Evening and Welcome to OWTU Speaks!
Amy Annamunthodo never lived, never really had life – was never allowed to – from wretched birth to abominable extinction at four(4), she knew only death.
All of our collective tears will still be insufficient to wash away the brutal ignominy and heinousness of the violent devastation of the tiny body and yet unformed mind of that four(4) year old Annamunthodo child. Nor would there be any remission of those sins of omission of which the rest of us are guilty if we did not ameliorate the conditions which produced this revolting example of a society in precipitous decent to barbarism.
Akiel Chambers, then Dane Andrews, then Sean Luke – now, Amy Annamunthodo – sexed and scarred and lifeless in a hell she could have done nothing to change?
How have we come to this? When did we arrive at all our miserable conjunctures all at once, and at the same time when the national coffers are awash with so much money that the political directorate can’t seem to understand what and how to do with! Where are our social infrastructure, our systems, our agencies, the social safety nets which ought to save the hindmost from being taken by the devil? What may have influenced that well meaning Magistrate to return little Amy to the hellish environment from which she had been previously removed by an agency of the State? What could have so blinded our appropriate agencies – if they are real – from restraining and restricting from free movement and action, those who were lighting the fires and creating the environment of torment that was Amy’s hell?
We now look to the most experienced and wise Madam Justice Barnes in her investigation to point out our failings. But more than that we look to her recommendations- recommendations which when implemented would ensure a safer environment and caring institutions that would leave none behind for the devil’s taking.
Should we then begin to put greater emphasis on looking out for the children and saving the youth?
Have a Good Evening and an enjoyable weekend
I am Errol Mc Leod for OWTU Speaks!
2006-05-22
Good Evening! ‘OWTU Speaks’ welcomes you to another of its communication pieces aimed at informing, educating, awakening and generally conscientising the many listeners who have chosen this frequency where talk makes sense on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays after the 6p.m. news cast.
Today, we glance at the happenings taking place at the bargaining table between the government appointed executive management team at the Petroleum Company of Trinidad and Tobago Limited (Petrotrin) and the Oilfields Workers’ Trade Union.
We wish to first emphasize that the oil worker has long abandoned the slave characteristic of ‘drawer of water and hewer of wood’ and has instead become the major bread winner for all of Trinidad and Tobago, given his great industry and contributory activity in the oil and gas sector – the mainstay of our national economy.
Secondly, it is absolutely important and compelling that attention be given to the serious drawbacks effects of inflation and general living costs on the wage earner’s purchasing power. There are also some definite bench marker trends which will be considered as setting national perspectives and, of course the sector’s or company’s performance will determine how far the pay pendulum should swing.
Even as the Petrotrin workers rumble and protest, it is not the OWTU’s style to negotiate in the media and with strangers but wish to make the following well known – publicly well known. Shortly before Carnival 2006 February, recommendations on ‘Remuneration Arrangements for Holders of Public Offices within the Purview of the Salaries Review Commission’ were laid in Parliament by the Minister of Finance and requiring no more than simple affirmation by Members of the House. Carnival was February 27th and 28th.
By Circular dated March 8, 2006 the Finance Minister instructed that the SRC’s recommendations be immediately implemented. As a matter of fact, as we speak, beneficiaries of those measures have already been in receipt of their new generously increased salaries and hundreds of thousands of back pay dollars.
The OWTU defends decent pay for all workers who turn in decent performances. And if Government Ministers, Members of Parliament, all of them and sundry other holders of Public Offices have been granted pay increases and perquisites averaging between 35% and 57% the costs of which are to be borne by the major contributors to the national economic and financial well being, then there is nobody who is more entitled and deserving of better remuneration adjustments than the energy sector worker. Yet, all we demand is equity. But Justice – ‘Trinidad and Tobago PUNCNM style’- is different strokes for different folks.
We will not take that this time, however!
There will be equity if there will be peace whenever, whoever rings whichever bell! Petrotrin’s Board of Directors and its line Ministers recognize the vastly improved performance of the Company in both downstream and upstream operations. The Company has recorded a very favourable profit due largely to workers’ efforts in growing refinery margins, sales volumes and general productivity improvements. Receipts for the six (6) month period October 2005 to March 2006 were 85% higher than had been budgeted.
Still, the Company’s Negotiating team has not officially moved from its provocative and ridiculous 7.5% offer on wages only. Hiding behind the drawers of strangers who reside in Cabinets and retreat at $55 M refurbished bungalows, the management defies its own reasoning on Inflation running at 7%, 6%, 6% in 2005, 2006 and 2007 respectively – the exact same period for which we are negotiating – the Company continues to threaten the peace. We on the other hand are making it clear as we did in 1995 that we will settle the issues peacefully, justly and equitably. And if the issues will not be settled peacefully, justly and equitably, we will still settle the issues.
If they will not be influenced by the strength of our arguments they maybe moved by the force of our numbers
Have a Good Evening!
I am Errol Mc Leod for OWTU Speaks!
2006-05-26
‘OWTU Speaks’ welcomes you to another edition of its information outreach commentaries on issues affecting the ordinary folk and citizen of Trinidad and Tobago.
Last day, we hinted at the skewed and lopsided approach by the authorities to effecting an income and wealth distribution such as would bear some semblance of fairness and equity. We commented on the huge but perhaps arguably justified salary increases granted to holders of public offices including Government Ministers and non-performing separatist politicians in the House of Representatives and Senate. We alluded to the gross imbalance between the adjustments recommended by the Salaries Review Commission and accepted by the Government Members and Opposition on the one hand, and the insulting offers which the Public Sector Negotiating Committee- made up of five (5) Government Ministers – has authorized for the drawers of water and hewers of wood in the State Enterprises and the public and private sectors.
We have made clear also that we will have none of that subversion of the collective bargaining process. Nor do we intend to abandon the bilateral process with the employer, Petrotrin, for self serving political grandstand with strangers. We regard them all to be against the workers except for their vote at ‘vampire’ time. Energy sector workers – members of the OWTU beg no favours of anybody. And we will accept no less than decent and equitable treatment of our share of the pie which, more than anyone else, we contributed to making.
A Business Guardian report last week Thursday, carried criticisms of Petrotrin’s labour costs and the OWTU’s demand for a 35% salary increase at this time.
The Public Accounts Committee of Parliament chaired by Senator Wade Mark and consisting of Mustapha Abdul-Hamid, Christine Kangaloo, Eudine Job-Davis, Mary King, Hedwige Bereaux, Howard Chin Lee, Colm Imbert, Hamza Rafeeq and Kelvin Ramnath, reportedly attacked the Company’s perceived high cost of operations with labour cost reported at approximately 47% of operating cost and suggesting that comparably sized organizations should register not more than 30%.
Our response is merely and respectfully that the Member of that Public Accounts (Enterprises) Committee are without a sound enough appreciation for the business that Petrotrin runs and the age of the technology and state of the physical infrastructure which support that business. If the committee knew and understood the business and if it did not harbour antiworker biases, it will not draw the unqualified conclusions which it seemed to had arrived at.
If the committee discovered the number of useless but costly consultancies and contracts through which the former and current administrations have employed their party members and which are charged under particular cost centres, its members would not be so naïve about the real labour and operating costs affecting Petrotrin. The committee is perhaps unaware that every oil refinery with which Petrotrin’s is compared is foreign and specifically US Gulf Coast based and except for throughput capacity are very different. Wages and salaries too are very different.
In that regard, we will never feel guilty about the OWTU’s demand for a 35% wage and salary increase. The Oil business is an International business denominated in United States Dollars for both feed stock and refined products. The workers in the comparator refineries against which Petrotrin is bench marked are paid top $US for their labour a couple of times more than the trinity dollar that we receive here.
A 35% increase still will not sufficiently ameliorate our disadvantage. Indeed the minimum wage of $6.15c paid to the burger boy in the US is more than the TT$34 which some classes of technical workers are paid here.
And finally, we have great difficulty accepting that folks who themselves just took a 50% increase in their salaries and some who were paid for not working during the days of an 18/18 hung parliament, should arrogate unto themselves any moral authority to berate the demands of those who really work to put breakfast and dinner on the national table.
We demand and will fight for social justice and equity. Next, we shall deal with inflation, high living costs, the failure of our social systems and abandonment by government.
Have a Good Evening and peaceful weekend
I am Errol Mc Leod for OWTU Speaks!
2006-05-29
Welcome to OWTU Speaks and special Good evening to Trinidad and Tobago on the eve of Indian Arrival Day.
Last Friday’s nail biting victory by the West Indies over India had to be the reason that Power 102 staff failed to air our five minute programme and thereby disappointed faithfully listeners. We are sorry and we are doing more to improve the regularity and broadcast quality of the OWTU Speaks where talk makes sense.
Last time, we hinted at the skewed and lopsided approach by the authorities, to effecting an income and wealth distribution such as would bear some semblance of fairness and equity.
We commented on the very handsome salary increases and backpay that were very recently granted, nay, taken by holders of public offices led by Government Ministers and including non-performing separatist politicians in the House of Representatives and Senate.
We pointed out the gross imbalance between those adjustment recommended by the Salaries Review Commission and already implemented for Members of the Government and Opposition on the one hand, and the insulting offers which the Public Sector Negotiating Committee, constituted by five (5) very well remunerated Ministers, has authorized for the drawers of water and hewers of wood in the State Enterprises and the public and private sectors.
We have made it clear we think – we have made it absolutely clear – we have made it superlatively clear that energy workers have performed and are the ones most directly related to the performance of the national economy and would accept no less than decent and equitable treatment. We will not contribute to a subversion of the collective bargaining process nor do we intend to abort the bilateral process with the employer – Petrotrin – and engage in any farcical self serving political grand stand with strangers to the process.
Indeed we regard those strangers as having anti-worker biases and see us as being necessary only for the vote at ‘Vampire’ time. Energy sector workers – members of the OWTU – beg no favours of anybody. We are proud workers and proud to be Union first and we will be respected, and we will accept no less than decent and equitable treatment of our share of the pie which, more than anyone else, we contributed to making.
A recent Business Guardian report carried some criticisms of Petrotrin’s reported current labour costs and the workers’ demand for a 35% salary increase at this time.
Those criticisms are attributed to the Public Accounts (Enterprises) Committee of Parliament chaired by Senator Wade Mark and including Mustapha Abdul-Hamid, Christine Kangaloo, Eudine Job-Davis, Mary King, Hewwige Bereaux, Howard Chin Lee, Colm Imbert, Hamza Rafeeq and Kelvin Ramnath. That Committee of PNM and UNC operatives held one common position as it attacked especially the 47% element reported to represent the company’s labour cost as part of operating cost as against a reported 30% at comparably sized integrated oil producing and refining organizations.
Well! Our respectful response is merely that the Public Accounts (Enterprises) Committee’s members are without any sound enough appreciation for the business that Petrotrin runs, the age of the technology and its labour intensive nature and the state of the physical infrastructure which supports that business. If the committee knew of the number of wasteful and expensive consultancies and contracts through which the former and current administrations have employed cronies of the party and which are charged under labour cost centres, it would unlikely draw the unqualified conclusions which it seemed to have hastily arrived at.
The Committee clearly is misled into believing that the oil refineries with which Petrotrin is compared are on the same playing field and ground level as Petrotrin’s. these comparator companies are all foreign and specifically US Gulf Coast based and very different even in the legal, financial reporting and accounting systems which they operate.
But more than all this, we have great difficulty with folks who themselves just took a 50% increase in their own salaries and even some who were remunerated for not working during the days of an 18/18 hung parliament, arrogating unto themselves any moral authority to berate the demands of those who really work to put breakfast and dinner on the national table.
We demand and will fight for social justice and equity.
Have a Good Evening.
I am Errol Mc Leod for OWTU Speaks!