As officials of Brazilian construction company, Construtora OAS are expected to leave Trinidad this month, the Oilfields Workers’ Trade Union (OWTU) is demanding the National Infrastructure Development Company (Nidco) settle its dispute with the company so that workers can be paid their severance benefits and outstanding salaries.
Retrenched highway workers of Construtora OAS continued their protest in the wee hours of yesterday, blocking Mosquito Creek with debris, including pieces of wood, steel and tyres they took from one of the construction sites along the Solomon Hochoy Highway Extension project.
Police and fire officers were out quickly to clear the road. However, none of the protesters were there and the roadblock created less traffic congestion than the previous days.
Speaking by telephone yesterday, OWTU president general Ancel Roget said the union wrote the company requesting a meeting to deal with the unpaid severance benefits but there was no response up to yesterday. This was followed by letters to Nidco and the Ministry of Labour and Small Enterprise Development.
Nidco is the project manager of the $7.4 billion Solomon Hochoy Highway Extension project to Point Fortin. Reiterating his earlier concerns that the company would leave the country without settling its arrears, Roget said that matter needed urgent attention. He added: “We have to be careful that they do not skip the country and leave the workers hanging. “We have records of their history of operation, therefore, we have to be proactive and take in front.
“Right now, we are trying to write all the relevant Government agencies—Nidco and of course the Ministry of Labour —to ask for their intervention and to get OAS to pay the workers their money.
“OAS is claiming that Nidco froze their assets, which they wanted to sell to make good on their payment, so we have requested a meeting with Nidco and that is where we are. “We wrote the company (Construtora OAS) requesting a meeting based on the latest development, they have not responded,” Roget added.
On April 25, Construtora OAS terminated 860 bi-monthly employees as they handed over work on the highway to several local contractors.
This was the result of a lack of funds to pay their sub-contractors, purchase material and pay salaries after their parent company, Grupos OAS in Brazil, filed for bankruptcy.Its access to financing was severely restricted by a corruption investigation at Brazilian state-owned oil company, Petrobras.
Given that T&T is already experiencing a harsh social fallout from the liquidation of ArcelorMittal Point Lisas, Roget warns that Government’s failure to intervene in former highway workers’ matter would deepen the country socio-economic problems.
He said: “Knowing what happened with ArcelorMittal, we are saying that the client, Nidco, as a Government agency, should have taken into account that these people (Construtora OAS) could flee the country.
“Therefore, they should have protected the interest of the country. Paramount to that is the interest of the workers and that is why we are writing to them because they were supposed to make sure that they were holding some kind of performance bond.” He added: “If they are holding that, we are calling on them to use that to make good the payment to the workers.
“Part of the company's performance has to do with how they treat with the local workforce. We are having a problem with all of the standoff approaches the governmental agencies are taking on issues relative towards labour.
“It is becoming a highly explosive situation and it will carry a lot of social consequences for the workers.
“Therefore, there ought to be some consideration for that and adopt a proactive approach to ensure that workers are not unduly burdened in this period when they are obviously owed money,” Roget said.