Retrenched OAS Construtora employees are calling on the company to break their silence over retroactive salaries and severance pay.
Oilfields Workers’ Trade Union shop steward and former safety officer, Jameel Thomas, told the T&T Guardian yesterday that workers have stopped receiving salary payments and are now in the dark as to whether they will receive any more money.
In an interview yesterday, Thomas said according to the retrenchment letters the 850 OAS workers were given earlier this year, they were supposed to receive salary payments in lieu of the 45-day notice from the company.
“OAS management gave all of the workers a legally binding letter stating that we would be paid at certain dates and that we were to be paid salaries in lieu of the 45-day notice,” Thomas said.
“We were supposed to receive three bi-monthly salaries on April 7, 22 and May 3. We only received money on April 7 and have not received any since then.”
On March 15, OAS sent home 850 workers and a promise was made to pay the workers outstanding salaries for the periods ending February 29 and March 15. Although workers were not required to work between the lay off date and April 25, they were promised salaries for the period April 7, 22 and May 2.
Severance benefits, including outstanding fringe benefits and unused vacation leave, are scheduled to be paid on or before May 25.
But Thomas said now the ex-workers are being left to wonder when they will be paid as repeated efforts to contact OAS management have failed.
He said last Friday a group of about 30 workers visited the Golconda office but were unable to get any information from workers stationed there.
“Workers have rent to pay, children to send to school. We need to know what is going on. We don’t know if the managers in Trinidad or if they left.”
Thomas said inclusive of severance pay, workers are owed between $15,000 to $35,000.