With last year’s industrial action forcing Trinidad Offshore Fabrication Company (TOFCO) to outsource part of their construction of bpTT’s Juniper Platform to a US firm, protesting workers said they would rather the company pack up and leave.
In 2015, TOFCO lost 97 days through industrial unrest and delays in the import of material, resulting in the company hiring a Texas company to construct the jacket and piles for the $2.1 billion Juniper project.
Asked whether workers were afraid of the entire project being outsourced, members of the TOFCO Workers’ Committee Clyde Charles said the company should be replaced if they could not give justice to the community.
“We have taken a position as the La Brea community and as workers that if Tofco does not intend to do anything proper for the community, it is better they pack up and go, and let somebody else come and build the same platform that has to be built.
“We are building something that will benefit the entire nation and we in La Brea are living under oppressed and depressed conditions,” Charles said.
Action intensified on the second day as unemployed La Brea residents joined the protest, blocking the entrance to the La Brea Industrial Development Company (LABIDCO) industrial estate. However, when South Western Division Task Force officers arrived, the workers gathered near the entrance of TOFCO
Charles said residents joined the protest because vacancies at the estate were being filled by outsiders. He said Tofco and another company engaged in upgrading LABIDCO’s port were the prime culprits. Meanwhile, the workers were continuing to highlight the need for proper safety conditions on the project. With Energy Minister and La Brea MP Nicole Olivierre refusing to intervene in the impasse, workers are now calling on Labour Minister Jennifer Baptiste-Primus for help.
Mother of two, Dixie-Ann Charles-Williams, said she was certified in health and safety and applied five times to a company upgrading the port and was told that all vacancies were filled. She said once an applicant’s address was La Brea, vacancies were not available.
“Give us a chance, we are certified,” Charles-Williams said.
“People have been begging for work in La Brea, begging for employment with no answers. Somebody has to stand up for us now. We need employment. We have ladies here as single parents. I have two kids and once I am certified, hire me. People are getting work on the outside, what about La Brea proper? What about us? So many promises before elections and after it is just a bow tie.”
MINISTER RESPONDS
Olivierre: I don’t know where the funds came from
Labelling the accusations as strange, Olivierre said none of the funds for the event came to her so she did not know which companies sponsored the event. She maintained that her involvement was not necessary as MP or minister as it was an industrial dispute between a company and its employees.
However, she did get involved by asking Baptiste-Primus to look into the workers’ concern, saying she was concerned that part of the project was already outsourced.
“This is a matter between Tofco and their employees so this is viewed as an industrial relations matter. This isn’t the community protesting against a company, it is employees of a company protesting within the confines of that location against the company.
“This is why I have stayed out of it because this is an industrial relations matter.
“I have spoken with the Minister of Labour about this and I have asked her to get involved so she will be looking into it. Neither as the MP or the Energy Ministry do I have any locus standi getting into this matter at this stage,” Olivierre said.
WORKERS QUESTION TOFCO TIES
Angered by Olivierre’s refusal to intervene, the protesters are now questioning her ties to Tofco, claiming she sourced funds from the companies in La Brea to host a week of events, including a beauty pageant under her patronage last year. Holding up the December 19 copy of the Sunday Express, which headline read: “NICOLE’S $.3M BEAUTY ERROR* She solicited contributions for beauty pageant, other events,” Kirk Christopher called on his MP to clear the air.
According to the article, Tofco was one of the companies Olivierre wrote to, using her MP’s letterhead. Lake Asphalt (1978) Ltd, Labidco, Caribbean Gas Chemicals Ltd, Trinidad Generation Unlimited and Namalco were some of the other companies.
“One of the reasons I believe the minister came out on national television and said she does not want to get involved in it per say is because this article here to me spells, ‘something stinks.’
“The very said company we are having the issue with is the very said company that it is alleged that she had asked for donations to run some beauty pageant.
“If you notice here, the minister blamed inexperience for making requests for funding from energy companies to host a pageant. Is it, honourable minister, that you are saying because of you dealing with the company asking for money, that is why you don’t want to intervene to put an end to this madness that is taking place in La Brea?” Christopher questioned.
ABOUT JUNIPER
The Juniper offshore gas project is the construction of bpTT’s first normally-unmanned platform with corresponding subsea infrastructure. The facility will take gas from the Coralita and Lantana fields located 50 miles off Trinidad’s southeast coast to the Mahogany B hub via a new ten kilometre flowline.
This development will include five subsea wells and will have a production capacity of approximately 590 million standard cubic feet a day (mmscfd).
Juniper will become bpTT’s 14th offshore production facility. Drilling was expected to begin last year and gas is expected from the facility in 2017.
The company said the project was important to its future as it will assist it in meeting its natural gas commitments to the market, as well as in introducing subsea infrastructure to continue the development of its resources in the Columbus Basin.