KEVON FELMINE

Se­nior Re­porter

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

Trinidad Ce­ment Ltd (TCL) re­tirees and cur­rent work­ers con­tin­ued their protest out­side the com­pa­ny’s Clax­ton Bay fa­cil­i­ty this morn­ing, de­mand­ing out­stand­ing Cost of Liv­ing Al­lowance (CO­LA) and gain-shar­ing pay­ments dat­ing back to 2012.

They’re call­ing on Labour Min­is­ter Stephen Mc Clashie, Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley, and Min­is­ter of Trade and In­dus­try Paula Gopee-Scoon to in­ter­vene, claim­ing TCL ex­ploits work­ers and re­tirees.

Mc Clashie ac­knowl­edged the protest, say­ing he’s wait­ing for a de­tailed re­port be­fore act­ing.

“I need to un­der­stand, clear­ly not from a me­dia news­pa­per per­spec­tive, what is the ac­tu­al state of pay…be­fore I can pro­nounce on any­thing or in­ter­vene,” Mc Clashie told Guardian Me­dia.

The Oil­fields Work­ers Trade Union (OW­TU) claims TCL’s de­mand for two claus­es is the key is­sue. TCL re­port­ed­ly wants the pay­ment to be “full and fi­nal” and wants CO­LA and gain-shar­ing re­moved from fu­ture ne­go­ti­a­tions. TCL re­spond­ed, af­firm­ing its com­mit­ment to on­go­ing dis­cus­sions and a fair res­o­lu­tion.