Go
ahead, cut Petrotrin staff
By
Roxanne Stapleton-Whyms
Trinidad & Tobago Newsday
Port Spain
Petroleumworldtt.com
08 18 07
IF GOVERNMENT really has any plan to cut staff
at state energy company Petrotrin, the Prime Minister
had better be prepared for a nationwide shutdown,
an Oilfield Workers Trade Union (OWTU) official
warned yesterday.
“Staff cuts? Let them come. The whole country
will be shut down,” the high ranking OWTU
official said. His statement was in response to
a story carried in yesterday’s edition in
which Prime Minister Patrick Manning responded
to concerns by energy sector players, that consideration
be given to shaving some of the more than 5,000
strong staff complement at the state energy company.
Manning
said, “A very similar situation
faced us at BWIA.” The former beleaguered
airline was shutdown, after millions of taxpayers
dollars were pumped into it to keep it flying in
the wake of 9/11’s debilitating effects to
the air travel industry and skyrocketed jet fuel
prices.
NP
CEO, Richard Callender suggested to Manning at
this week’s energy conference that “a
radical culture change” be instituted at
public sector companies as he fingered Petrotrin.
Manning
responding to Callender’s concerns,
said: “A very similar situation faced us
at BWIA... we then installed a new Board at BWIA
and even if they could have transformed it, they
quickly realised after four of the six months that
we gave them, that they needed to close BWIA and
start a new company.”
Manning,
choosing his words carefully on Tuesday, asked
Callender based on the BWIA model what would
he propose to do, to which Callender answered: “It
can be done within the oil sector.”
Each time there has been protest action at Petrotrin
involving its workers and OWTU, their bargaining
union, operations across Trinidad and Tobago have
been brought to a virtual standstill, with extensively
long lines at gas (service) stations and a shortage
of LPG gas tanks.
The OWTU is considered by many as the most influential
and powerful union in the country.
In the event that any such shutdown should be
undertaken, sources have indicated that contingency
plans involving army officers to take over delivery
operations at Petrotrin will go into full gear.
Trinidad
& Tobago News day
Thursday, August 16
2007
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