OWTU SPEAKS 2002 NOVEMBER 22ND
MT. HOPE HAD NO BED FOR LUKE JOHN.
Nobody would convince me that toddler Luke John’s 40—ft fall was due to anything but thoughtlessness and lack of due care and attention by the adult in whose care he was supposed to be. I say this in support of the axiom – that accidents do not just happen – they are caused. And I understand too, the pain of all those who must love that bright little toddler. My first son, when he was just barely 36 moths fell some fifteen feet, and his too was due to inattention, unconcern and carelessness. Thank God however, he is alive and strong and a normal young man today.
But I am almost driven to anger when, after all the years of working peoples Health Surcharge Contributions, the hundreds of millions of petro tax dollars to build an equip Mt. Hope, you hear that little Luke’s transfer to the Mt. Hope Children’s Hospital was “rejected because there were no beds available.” “That Mt. Hope had one of only two CAT Scan machines available in the public health sector.” “That there were two CAT scan machines at private medical centers in South Trinidad, with tests costing between $1,700 and $2,200.” “That the only other CAT scan in the public sector is at Port of Spain but you have to pay.” What arrant bull foot is being debated while innocent toddler’s life hangs in balance? Or is it because this is a small child of small poor non economic and material means and socially not counted? ‘No beds at Mt. Hope, no money for CAT scan,’ that’s what the headliner to the Express Pg 3 story says. It is reported that the child’s heart rate has dropped from 140 beats per minute and was hovering between 40 and 50 bpm, and that his only chance is a CAT scan that doctors need to determine the severity of his brain injuries. I guess the next report, if it has not yet gone is likely to be, that all efforts failed to save the toddler – so severe were his injuries. But what effort would they talk about? A twiddling of the clumsy bureaucratic thumb over the unaffordable purring of CAT scan to a poor and hapless family. If that child survives and I pray he does, and if he lives to the age of understanding, he might well say, some years hence, the Trinidad version of what years ago, I was taught to say in a poem – “Oh England is a pleasant place for them that’s rich and high, But England is a cruel place for such poor folks as I’. Just imagine that! After all the oil and gas and methanol and LNG and Free Trade Area of the Americas, FTAA, and break up of state monopoly and the entrenchment of private ownership and monopoly, Regional Health Authorities with no regions, no health, no local authority, no nutten – when, like in the case of little Luke Marcus John – it will be money or your life. No free CAT scan, no free lunch, no aid, only aids and enraged, deranged, unparented youth shooting up schools, hating blacks, hating life, denying God, worshipping hell!
This aberration that is a response to shaping and ordering society cannot last. We may be forced to say then:- Oh Trinidad is a pleasant place for them that thief, are rich, fat and high. But Trinidad is a cruel place for such wretched folks as I.
Have a peaceful and happy weekend.
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OWTU SPEAKS 2002 NOVEMBER 2002
Let Giselle take her time to grow up normally.
I love the sport Boxing but I hate to see the boxer hurt. They were, in my view, the best exponents of the art and possessed superior ring craft and all that, but I was always nervous, jumpy when heroes, Muhammed Ali and Sugar Ray Lennard got into the ring. I thought that they were too good looking to risk having their faces bruised and battered by some wild and venomous pugilist. But those two scientists of the art represented themselves well, very well indeed. They were not only talented boxers, they were smart, intelligent – they were bright individuals and boxers and they had started their grooming and training in their early teens too.
Giselle Salandy is a very good looking youngster with good, solid but raw talent and I am sure, that if properly groomed and apprenticed, she could well be on her way to stardom and demanding respectable purses in the next three (3) to five (5) years. Why should anyone want to spoil that now? Why should she be pushed to deny her growth into being the beautiful young woman whom she has the potential to be? – Just look again at the engaging picture of the lass on Page 3 of today’s Express. But Giselle must not just be a boxer who has honed her raw talent into being a good artist in the ring. She must not be allowed to be another Claude Noel whatever her family’s economic and present social circumstances.
She must be helped to develop into being a smart, bright and intelligent individual who will represent herself and her country well. She must speak properly and be acceptably articulate. To do that she must go to school – she must read, write, discuss, relate, report – she must do English and Arithmetic/Math. And all of these can be involved included in a well-designed apprenticeship programme. Applied Arithmetic/Math will have her calculate and understand the size, the area of the ring and the angles into which one can set up one’s quarry. She needs to be able to calculate how much of her purse goes to expenses for the Manager, Trainer and corner men and women all among whom the most cunning hustlers and con men can be found. She must be no dunce who will cuff her own self down and then say like a moron – “Ah geh a cuff that buss meh mout and de blood nearly blin meh. Ah coun see.” I heard that before or something like that from a former champ. I am saying in other words – let Giselle take her time to grow up normally. Let us provide her with the facilities, the tools, the means the support to become the world class boxing champion that she wants to be as we would, if she were to have decided on becoming a teacher, nurse, physicist, lawyer or economist. But let us act quickly and not put divisive and manipulative politics in it either. It is not a matter for any $10,000 gift with an ulterior agenda neither should the child’s handlers be charged for an enthusiasm that drove them into the realms of indiscretion.
And let us not relent – we should even strengthen the law against child labour to more properly relate to the UN Convention on the rights of the child to protection from economic exploitation and from performing any work that may be hazardous.
The OWTU will be happy to make its own small contribution to Giselle Salandy going to school and learning well so that she does not end up a failed boxer abandoned by handlers and ketching hell.
Best of luck to the country’s Boxing Princess.
Aim high and shoot even further
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OWTU SPEAKS NOVEMBER 18TH 2002
OWTU DEPENDS ON ITS' OWN EFFORTS & RESOURCES FIRST.
The Oilfields Workers’ Trade Union is what it is largely because it does the Trade Union things that Trade Unions are, by their mission, expected to do. We depend on ourselves, our own efforts and resources first and fore most. We are not now nor have we ever been in anybody’s autonomy, and our independence of parties (in and out of government) and their leaders. It is for this, apparently, that the OWTU is hated by some politicians and their sycophantic miscreant pot hounds in the trade union movement. We are sure that it is for the same reason that other decent politicians and people who are important, respect us. We are comfortable with that. We are not wishing for anybody to hug us; and we most certainly will not be hugged by the dagger carrying screamers of alienation, discrimination and political victimization – not under this sun – about to set, or with rays dimmed by sellout, thievery or corruption.
Last week, some day, we received by fax, an invitation from one Vincent Cabrera to attend an activity at the Rienzi Complex on Friday 15. We thought the invitation to be suspect and therefore decided against accepting it. As it turned out, we were correct. Mr. Cabrera’s theme at the event was pitched against the OWTU and for a call to civil obedience. Had we attended, that Party spokesman would have had very little to talk about his Rally. But we are not bothered by that as we are concerned about the political masquerade and flip flop to which workers’ genuine issues are subjected. How many times since last June have we heard about lock jam and civil obedience and to what end? Vincent Cabrera like his former nondescript Senatorial Wade in opportunism colleague is a poor mimic.
As recent as November 2000 when the OWTU and other independent Unions were condemning the Yet Ming/Assam Plan for Caroni, the Union leadership there, roundly put us in our place telling us in the OWTU that we were farse and impertinent to interfere in their business.
We hear foolish talk now about OWTU and some other Unions – whom I’m sure have spoken for themselves – are in collusion with the government to mash up Caroni. Nonsense! Every independent and objective view will express that Caroni was ear marked by the Panday UNC administration for dismantling by June 2002. OWTU condemned and opposed it. The Patrick Manning administration is with essentially the same plan. We condemn and oppose that too. We do not have to shift from one political foot to do a jig on the other because we are OWTU and independent. And Messrs Cabrera, Kelvin and the other UNC dustbin terriers about the place had better leave us alone and mind their own sun burned rotting business.
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OWTU SPEAKS 2002 – 11- 13
TAMPERING WITH COMPANY'S EQUIPMENT
The Express Opinion Column today proffers a ‘New Challenge for Petrotrin’ and chastises those alleged would be company killers who the Petrotrin President, Rodney Jagai affirms, are tampering with the Company’s Wells and associated production equipment. The Express opinion also questions where the militant Oilfields Workers’ Trade Union might be in this? Well, for the information of all, the OWTU officially dealt with Mr. Jagai’s affirmations at a meeting with the Chairman and members of the Petrotrin Board and Management yesterday. Mr. Jagai himself was not present at the meeting and his absence could not be accounted for and was as a matter of fact, obviously and undeniably embarrassing to his colleagues on the Board and Management side.
But the Union, without reservation, questioned the flippancy of Jagai’s allegations, insisted on a thorough investigation, and demanded that the most severe legal penalties be applied to those whom Rodney Jagai accuses – who ever they may be, once they are guilty of such serious and criminal infractions. The OWTU will always repudiate vandalism, sabotage and all acts against the national interest and the workers’ and peoples’ patrimony. We in the OWTU refuse to think that the CEO, Mr. Jagai is engaging in mischief and irresponsible behaviour as a smoke screen to obfuscate the Company’s very poor performance due to mismanagement, a skewed vision and lack of professional and business leadership. Petrotrin is being made into a basket case by a management which motivates and inspires nobody and which has, as it were, retired on the job to facilitate particular political agendas.
That, and other methods of sabotage notwithstanding, the OWTU is as concerned about the allegations of tampering with Petrotrin’s wells and production equipment today as we were serious about the stealing of hundreds of barrels of the Company’s crude oil by other operators and business partners; as we were serious about the loss of very expensive $m drilling and production tools to favoured contractors and business associates; as we are serious about the retirement and cannibalization of Company plant and equipment to make space for the rental and use of contractor partner’s organized facilities; as we are serious about shoddy, unsafe and therefore expensive engineering works being awarded to crony contractors whose experience is in grass cutting and pot hole patching: as we are serious Mr. Jagai and Mr. ill-informed opinion writer, about the willful neglect of the Petrotrin Galeota offshore operations to effect a deterioration of the facilities and consequent drastic fall in the production of high quality crude that provides for better refinery margins: as we are serious about the Nicodemuses who spirit away valuable parts and equipment from the Petrotrin Rig 1, the best and most efficient in its class but stacked for viewing and vandalizing by those who wish to lease it to competitors in an environment of high crude prices when the ownership of a Rig is a Premium.
All of these and more are obvious acts of sabotage against the Company and that would have impacted adversely the Company’s financial performance and that had been regularly brought to the attention and notice of the Petrotrin Management and about which they skinned its teeth, turned up its nose and twiddled its thumbs. The OWTU wants all the tamperers, thieves and saboteurs apprehended and punished for acts against the workers’ and peoples’ interest.
Whoever they are, we will not defend them. We insist however that we look high and low and beyond the oil well and production facilities to find them. The opinion writer is correct – ‘more than words, what is required is the unearthing of the would-be company killers followed by decisive action against them in the interests of the wider population to whom Petrotrin belongs.
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OWTU SPEAKS 2002-11-11
big fish destroy small fish and devil take the hindmost.
The Chairman of Petrotrin would have us all believe that “the Company can be very easily recreated by its employees emptying their minds of all that they consider the company to currently be and focusing instead on what it has to be”. Now, there are perhaps a few things which the Chairman himself has not considered or he would not allow his own enthusiasm to prod him into the realms of the indiscretions of a failed current Petrotrin Executive Management. The Chairman should know that the Company has been recreated about three times over the past six (6) years, each time producing a clumsier, more expensive, overburdened and more top heavy hybrid of all that went before. If he investigates and examines properly, the Petrotrin Chairman will find that the Company is like an ailing patient whose malady is exacerbated by heavier doses of a failed medicine, administered by attending physicians who although holding valid certificates have themselves failed their internships. Petrotrin is being made more artificially expensive as a ploy to hasten its dismantlement for a different shareholder and management ownership. And so, Petrotrin’s Chairman, a hardworking, highly competent and successful Company Executive must know, what is that positive and focused action that is necessary as a precursor for Petrotrin to survive and prosper.
The screaming headline in one newspaper this morning “PETROTRIN SABOTAGE’, as claimed by the Company’s CEO ought not to rest lightly. The fullest and most thorough investigations into charges of Exploration & Productions installations and facilities being tampered with, must be conducted and any culprits, who ever they may be, found guilty of illegally destroying, removing or otherwise interfering with the country’s patrimony – that ‘s what it is – should have applied to him the severest allowable penalty. The Union had previously drawn to the Company’s attention allegations of oil and equipment theft against certain second party Petrotrin relationships, yet to be acted on by first party authorities. It looks very much like a convenient side issue though, to at this moment engage in half truths and innuendoes as a means to diverting focus and attention from a failed management and its disgusting incompetence or perhaps more generously stated – a management whole failure is as a result of a planned and deliberate dereliction of duty and responsibility and which now wants to throw out the Baby with the Bath water.
The workers of Petrotrin demand that this state enterprise has not been – even as it continued to be sabotaged and mismanaged – this state enterprise has not been a financial or economic burden on taxpayers and the country and its workers will not be made to feel guilty and apologetic about anything and therefore will not sacrifice their jobs and their livelihood to satisfy the proponents of the paradigm of the big fish destroy small fish and devil take the hindmost.
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OWTU SPEAKS 2002-11-08
Different strokes for different folks
It was most insensitive of anyone, given all of the circumstances, to promote a Cabinet broken land settlement or suggested Gift for a member of the Cabinet. Any such action in our view, could be considered tainted with favoritism, bias and therefore corrupt. After all that has been said and I am sure, will continue to be said about government’s practices of the past six (6) years, it must be a mind that is fickle or an office that is wont of the arrogance of the privilege that will seek to effect extra ordinary dispensations for the already well positioned and privileged.
There must be seen, some serious attempt to ameliorate the divisive and destructive application of different strokes for different folks. And we must welcome the very principled comments and intervention yesterday by former MP for Tobago West, Pamela Nicholson. Let me suggest also that while it is accepted and appreciated that the Cabinet, yesterday, decided against involvement in the matter, it must be deprecate that such decision seemed to have depended on the Plaintiff Minister’s lawyer’s decision to resolve the matter in open court. That seemed to shallow and obviously manipulated – the issue should not have been suggested to Cabinet in the first place unless all of the cases and claims of all of those persons affected by the particular land deal were included.
Neither is it deliberately suggested here that there was corrupt intent in the move to facilitate Mr. Gift. It seemed more a case of common sense not being common and that an accustomed absence of it could well lead to developing tastes and customs which may well be questioned as corrupt. It is so absolutely necessary that all is done to break the cycle of malfeasance that has tainted the body politic over the last several years.
It is the same double standards, different strokes for different folks, big fish eat small fish and small fish eat mud – that is seen playing out in the struggle for better wages and decent conditions against the unconscionable exploiters at the Atlas Methanol construction site.
It is the same skewed and oppressive approach to dealing with important people issues that gives buoyancy to the incompetent, visionless and destructive management of state assets and resources such as we are currently battling against in Petrotrin at this time.
And we shall overcome! We are certain of that. Have a good evening and peaceful weekend.
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tin-pan leaders
Even as the country celebrated the illumination of our lives with the victory of light over darkness and good over evil a few days ago, the drums of war and the harbingers of deceit, mischief and confusion could be heard ringing out their poison. It is not coming immediately to mind but it was some English American, I think, named Boyd, who said ---------- It is more than willingness to change, that sets the true leaders apart. It is seeking out change and wringing every bit of potential out of it that takes you to the next horizon. ------ Here in Trinidad & Tobago, we seem to have more than a fair share of leaders who would engage in exchange rather than subscribe to meaningful change and who would exploit the lingering and perhaps exponentially malignant potential for backwardness and primordial appeals among the masses and therefore miss the next horizon because of obscure vision.
We have here, some tribalist tin-pan leaders who will dig up the pitch, demolish the pavilion if they did not control the game. And when they once controlled it, their ardent supporters and alienated tribesmen were not even allowed unto the grounds to see the game; and their sponsors, - well, they were made to make donations in foreign currencies into overseas accounts. And now, in the late evening and sunset of their careers of misleadership, their alienation of those whom they identified as dinosaurs, criminals, pseudo racists, professional protesters and terrorists, they cry foul and hypocritically and deceitfully portray a resemblance to the Great Mahatma, Luther King and Mandela all of whose ideals and selfless championing were genuine and were for all of the people at the same time.
The works of these men had taken on such universal appeal that though two of them – Gandhi and Luther King have long gone to the great beyond – their power and Mandela’s still very active labours, maintain their eternal relevance and real life existence. They did not dress like priests and behave like Philistines. They did not leave their people at the gate while they dined and wined and golfed with the parasitic predators. Now there are threats of strikes with Civil disobedience and non-cooperation and the mother of all motor cades, traffic jams and lock jams in the city. All of this, after a condemnation and near outlawing of protest demonstrations, labour strikes and making the Summary Offences Ordinance more draconian, three years ago.
One newspaper says that the man’s virulent hysteria would be laughable had it not found so many Trinidadians vulnerable to its poison. Another comment said – “to seek to turn the fears of Indo-Trinidad businessmen into a general political and racial suspiciousness goes way beyond irresponsibility. And that such is the behaviour of the worst kind of demagogue”. My Concise Oxford tells me that a demagogue is a political agitator appealing to the desires or prejudices of the mob. My view is that it means more than that, much more than that. The demagogue is very much the designer of the scheme of destruction – it is he who thrives on the disorganization that creates the mob. He makes the mob. He will fail though as our people are not very brazen with such backwardness. But his season has come to an end and his sun is settling and its rays will disappear as their ownership is claimed by each of the disparate and desperate underlings whom the Fox has promised succesorship.
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OWTU SPEAKS – 2002-11-01
T & T should abandon the posture of mendicant client state
I commented that Trinidad and Tobago should abandon the posture of mendicant client state at the feet of the MNC and instead assert our own importance and decisions over our approach to the interconnectedness between developments in our Oil and gas sector – (the backbone of T & T’s economy) – and the broader socio-economic development of the country. My comment was made on the invitation of two (2) newspaper reporters in response to the Prime Minister was right! “We should not be begging any more for handouts from the MNC’s. The negotiations must be conducted fairly and squarely and must result in very tangible benefits to Trinidad & Tobago, or gas may well be left in the ground.
We will be seen as engaging in platitudinous lip service on developing to first world status in 2020 while continuing to chain ourselves to an 1820 fourth world colonial servile mentality. It must no longer be allowed! A pertinent question immediately arises! How important is the Energy Sector? It is crucially important to the extent that all else depends on it.
In 2001, revenues from natural gas exceeded that from oil in absolute terms for the first time. Petroleum revenues in fiscal 2001 amounted to $4.56b. or 32% of total government revenues. The natural gas sub sector contributed $.6b. or 60% of petroleum revenues and 20% of total government revenue. ALNG train 2 last August and train 3 in April/May 2002 will increase government revenue from natural gas by an estimated $1.b./year under very conservative price assumptions, we are advised. But while Gas features so prominently in our economic planning and perhaps because of the MNC’s domination of the sub-sector no quoted price was determined or referred to in the just passed Budget.
Oil however has been quoted at a reasonably realistic price of $22/barrel. Emphasis here really is on Atlantic LNG being the dominant factor in determining government revenue and therefore service to the citizens and people of T & T. And it is especially important to note that unlike Methanol, Ammonia and other derivatives from natural gas, there is not value added in Trinidad & Tobago in the case of LNG exports.
And of course, very little is said and nothing is planned for the Oil Sub-sector except perhaps an anxious wait for tax revenues from BHP’s expected 100,000 bopd of high quality crude oil. Where does our Refinery configure in this? Or will BHP’s production like LNG escape local value added and be exported as a primary base product? This sector i.e. Land Production, possesses the most potential for the provision of meaningful employment for significant numbers in the South and the South-Eastern districts where unemployment has been increasing in the past several years of the bust that followed the 1974-1983 boom. No incentives have been given, but prevailing high crude prices and a projection that they will stay strong over the medium term, is sufficient to see us engaged in an aggressive Oil winning programme a this time. But such requires leadership – leadership which, it appears, the state sector does not have at this time following the atrocities of the UNC’s politically influenced dismantling and corrupt mismanagement over the past period.
Such mismanagers are still at their posts at Petrotrin and are now more concerned with stripping that Company of its last vestiges of the human and other potential for a viable and successful State Enterprise. Petrotrin faces a challenge for survival. The Refinery continues to struggle to achieve viability and to realize consistently profitable operations despite the US$350m. Upgrade and the drastic reduction in staffing over the last six years. Indeed the converse has been the result with reported higher operating expenses and lower efficiency margins.
Petrotrin continues to fail even in an environment in which all others are succeeding. This is so because of a crisis at the country’s single most important and largest state enterprise. It is a crisis of management – a leadership crisis. But it is resolvable. And it must happen before Petrotrin becomes the Caroni of 2003. The Executive Management and many of its immediate underlings are the boils in the heal of Petrotrin’s survival and success. And we hope that sufficient light will illuminate the path of those whose authority it is to direct a decent and proper course of action that will obviate not so pleasant reaction by those who love the Company and Trinidad & Tobago more.
Happy Divali to all