The Oilfields Workers’ Trade Union (OWTU) has filed an appeal over a 0-0-0 judgement between the Senior Staff Association of the Trinidad & Tobago Electricity Commission and the State Enterprise.
At a Media Conference on Friday, OWTU President General Ancel Roget said the employees of T&TEC assist in producing a commodity that everyone benefits from, and described the judgment as unfair and worthy of a review.
On February 18, the court, comprising a 3-member committee, ruled that T&TEC workers would not get a salary increase for the 2015-2017 period as it would be too expensive for T&TEC to pay at this time.
However, Roget declared, “We are not going to accept any zero-zero-zero (salary increase).”
The OWTU has since filed a notice to appeal the court’s judgement with the Court of Appeal on Thursday and will now await a date for the hearing of that appeal.
“If there is one group of workers in TT that deserve a proper adjustment on their wages, it is the T&TEC workers. I say that without fear of contradiction, without fear of confrontation,” Roget said. “While we sleep there is electricity. While you are awake, there is electricity. When you are sick, there is electricity. When you get well, there is electricity. That is the constant.”
He claimed T&TEC had not proved it could not pay workers any salary increase from 2015-2017, and the covid19 pandemic cannot be used to justify this.
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