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What oil workers’ sickout shows

ON JULY 14, when Minister of Energy and Energy Industries Dr Roodal Moonilal was cosying up to Perenco TT Ltd officials – posing with them for pictures high in the ministry’s headquarters in the skyscrapers of downtown Port of Spain – something far less cordial was playing out down below and out of sight. Oil rig workers employed with a Perenco subcontractor, Sookhai Engineering and Rental Services Ltd, were in the throes of a sickout action, begun on July 7. The split-screen image suggests the price some workers pay for this country’s overall economic progress. It is yet another challenge to the credibility of the new UNC government’s “Workers Agenda,” which has already been damaged by the Cepep fallout mere months into its tenure. Dr Moonilal encouraged Perenco, among the top gas producers here, “to explore partnerships and investment opportunities both locally and regionally.” Yet, while he was doing this, workers involved in the Teak, Samaan and Poui fields operated by Perenco were protesting what they described as poor conditions endured under the subcontractor. On social media, they groused about stagnant pay, inferior PPE, delays in getting paid, problems with severance, victimisation and being made to work without insurance for about $10,000 a month. Officials for the subcontractor declined to comment on any of these complaints but cited workmen’s compensation insurance, favourable contract terms and, significantly, ongoing negotiations. Seeming like a private sector issue might be all of this. But it nonetheless highlights the need for healthy industrial relations – and effective regulation – across the board, not just in the public sector but also in the private. Yet, promised by the UNC ahead of the April 28 general election was a spate of reforms that overwhelmingly targeted the former, not the latter. Though the government has swiftly repealed the TTRA, promised to make pensions tax-exempt and moved, admirably, to deliver a living wage, the callous tenor of the Cepep firings has undermined its authority on worker issues, generally. Ministers have attempted to frame the sackings in terms of political patronage; but the PNM has rightly seized on them as bad for workers. To study the ongoing adversarial politics of governance is to wonder where private sector workers, who also need protection, fit in. The UNC did promise, in its manifesto documents, “to modernise all labour legislation.” This could include encouraging unionisation, which might help both private and public employees (the PNM was accused of being anti-union). But if it is to restore any of its cachet and continue to satisfy its trade union partners like the OWTU, the government must go further. Its upcoming budget measures must boldly improve workers’ conditions far and wide, even offshore. That’s what the oil workers have shown. The post What oil workers’ sickout shows appeared first on Trinidad and Tobago Newsday.