Retrenched highway workers have threatened violence and vow to dispose of the remaining assets of their former employer, Brazilian construction company Construtora OAS, if they fail to get their outstanding salaries and severance pay by the end of the week.
For several hours yesterday the workers’ protest caused traffic gridlock in several areas in South Trinidad as they blocked the Golconda Connector Road and the South Trunk Road, La Romaine, demanding their monies.
“We want we monies right now,” they shouted, as other workers dragged an old water tank and pieces of wood across the Golconda Connector Road, preventing access to the highway.
Only ambulances and undertakers on their way to the Forensic Science Centre were allowed through the blockades.
At the Mosquito Creek, pieces of steel and other discarded material from the construction site were dragged across the South Trunk Road.
Riot Squad officers from the Police Service were called in and by 2 pm, the road blocks were cleared. However, the incensed workers spent most of the day outside OAS gates at Golconda, demanding to speak with OAS country manager Rodrigo Ventura and project director Ailson Agib Pereira. Nobody responded as several OAS expatriates had evacuated the company’s offices since 9.20 am.
Worker representative from the Oilfields Workers’ Trade Union, Jameel Thomas, claimed 860 workers, 60 local contractors and some managers were owed in excess of $200 million.
He said during a previous meeting, OAS officials promised the outstanding payments by last week Thursday. However, Thomas said even though workers received payslips, they never received any monies in their accounts.
“What is frightening now is that OAS has sent home its payroll staff. The human resource manager was also sent home. The OAS superintendent said we will get money but we are still owed two outstanding salary payments for the April 15 and April 25. We are asking the management for weeks now but they saying they cannot pay us because Nidco (the project manager) has stopped them from selling their equipment.”
Expressing fear that the managers will pack up and go, Thomas called on Government to intervene and compel OAS to pay severance pay.
Ex-workers want Govt to intervene
Many of the workers said they were waiting on their severance pay to settle their debts. Nikisha Mitchell, who has two children, said she has not been able to find a job since she was laid off in January.
“It hard for me because the bills piling up.” Former scaffolder foreman Frankie Rampersad said he was puzzled as to why the company would issue payslips but not send outstanding salaries to the workers’ bank accounts. “Something is amiss and if we don’t take action this company could leave T&T when the contract ends in May,” Rampersad said. Another worker, who works in the administration department, said at a staff meeting Ventura promised that all salaries would be paid by May 15.
Spokesman for the contractor Alister Rambharack said more than 60 contractors and suppliers were owed more than US$40 million. He called on Nidco to release OAS’s US$280 million performance bonds deposit and allow the company to pay off workers.
“Nidco is operating based on the committee that the Government formed. AECOM, the engineering firm hired by Nidco, has indicated that they never overpaid OAS. Nidco is not communicating with OAS and Government is playing politics with our lives,” Rambharack said.
Saying local contractors and workers were facing the biggest losses out of the stalled highway project, Rambharack said it was time for Government to reach out and help workers. Nidco’s project manager Earl Wilson yesterday declined comment. However, Nidco’s corporate communications manager Ingrid Ishmael said the non-payment of workers was a matter between OAS and the workers.
Asked whether it was possible for performance bonds to be released to OAS to pay workers, Ishmael said workers were being misinformed.
MORE INFO
On May 2, prior to his departure from T&T, Prime Minister Keith Rowley said the contract with Construtora OAS for the Solomon Hochoy Highway extension project to Pt Fortin may be terminated and the Government was seeking to “extricate” the State from a very “difficult, scandalous arrangement.” He said the Attorney General’s Office was guiding Nidco in the matter. He said the project had to be completed under new contractors.