OWTU gains bargaining status at Heritage, Paria

GEISHA KOW­LESSAR-ALON­ZO

Se­nior Re­porter

geisha.kow­[email protected]

The Sen­ate has ap­proved two amend­ments to the Her­itage Pe­tro­le­um, Paria Fu­el Trad­ing and Guaracara Re­fin­ing Vest­ing Amend­ment Bill 2026, paving the way for the Oil­fields Work­ers’ Trade Union (OW­TU) to be deemed the recog­nised ma­jor­i­ty union for work­ers at Her­itage Pe­tro­le­um and Paria Fu­el Trad­ing for both ex­ist­ing col­lec­tive agree­ments and fu­ture col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing.

The amend­ments, which orig­i­nat­ed in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives, were passed fol­low­ing a di­vi­sion in the Sen­ate, with 17 sen­a­tors vot­ing in favour, six against and sev­en ab­stain­ing.

Pi­lot­ing the amend­ments, Leader of Gov­ern­ment Busi­ness Dar­rell Al­la­har said the changes were in­tend­ed to clar­i­fy Par­lia­ment’s orig­i­nal in­tent when the leg­is­la­tion was de­bat­ed ear­li­er this year.

The first amend­ment re­places the word “con­tin­ue” with the words “be deemed” in a new­ly in­sert­ed sec­tion of the leg­is­la­tion.

Al­la­har said the change was be­ing made “out of an abun­dance of cau­tion” to en­sure that the OW­TU, which was the recog­nised ma­jor­i­ty union rep­re­sent­ing work­ers at Petrotrin be­fore its re­struc­tur­ing in 2018, would be deemed the recog­nised ma­jor­i­ty union for work­ers at Her­itage Pe­tro­le­um and Paria Fu­el Trad­ing.

He ex­plained that while the OW­TU had been the bar­gain­ing agent at Petrotrin, the suc­ces­sor com­pa­nies were cre­at­ed af­ter Petrotrin ceased to ex­ist, mak­ing it more ap­pro­pri­ate in law to “deem” the union to hold that sta­tus rather than state that it would “con­tin­ue”.

The sec­ond amend­ment ex­pands the pro­vi­sion to make clear that the OW­TU’s sta­tus ap­plies not on­ly to col­lec­tive agree­ments in­her­it­ed from Petrotrin, but al­so “for the pur­pos­es of col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing” go­ing for­ward.

Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tors ob­ject­ed to the changes, ar­gu­ing that the amend­ments ex­tend­ed be­yond clar­i­fi­ca­tion and could af­fect the rights of oth­er trade unions.

Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor Faris Al-Rawi ar­gued that the In­dus­tri­al Re­la­tions Act al­ready pro­vides a process for de­ter­min­ing recog­nised ma­jor­i­ty union sta­tus based on work­er sup­port, and warned that Par­lia­ment should ex­er­cise cau­tion when leg­is­lat­ing in a man­ner that could af­fect con­sti­tu­tion­al rights.

How­ev­er, the amend­ment that gen­er­at­ed the most ex­ten­sive de­bate was the in­ser­tion of the words “and for the pur­pos­es of col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing” in­to the leg­is­la­tion.

In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor Michael de la Bastide told the Sen­ate that the ef­fect of those words sig­nif­i­cant­ly broad­ened the pro­vi­sion be­yond what had orig­i­nal­ly been ap­proved by the Up­per House in June.

He said the orig­i­nal ver­sion of the leg­is­la­tion on­ly recog­nised the OW­TU for a lim­it­ed pur­pose, name­ly the ad­min­is­tra­tion of col­lec­tive agree­ments that had been en­tered in­to by Petrotrin be­fore the ap­point­ed date.

“The OW­TU is not deemed to be the recog­nised ma­jor­i­ty union for Her­itage and Paria work­ers gen­er­al­ly speak­ing,” de la Bastide said.

In­stead, he said the union’s sta­tus was con­fined to col­lec­tive agree­ments in­her­it­ed from Petrotrin.

He ar­gued that the ad­di­tion of the new word­ing fun­da­men­tal­ly changed the scope of the leg­is­la­tion.

“The ef­fect of those words is to deem the OW­TU to be the recog­nised ma­jor­i­ty union for Paria and Her­itage work­ers not on­ly for the pur­pos­es of past col­lec­tive agree­ments en­tered in­to by Petrotrin but for the pur­pose of all col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing gen­er­al­ly, so go­ing for­ward as well,” de la Bastide ex­plained.

He con­tend­ed that the amend­ment ef­fec­tive­ly grants the OW­TU the same sta­tus it would have ob­tained if it had been for­mal­ly cer­ti­fied by the Reg­is­tra­tion, Recog­ni­tion and Cer­ti­fi­ca­tion Board as the recog­nised ma­jor­i­ty union for work­ers at the two state com­pa­nies.

“The ef­fect of those words that are now be­ing added is es­sen­tial­ly to con­fer on the OW­TU the same sta­tus it would have had if it had been cer­ti­fied by the board,” he said.

De la Bastide fur­ther ar­gued that recog­nised ma­jor­i­ty union sta­tus car­ried sig­nif­i­cant con­se­quences un­der the In­dus­tri­al Re­la­tions Act be­cause it gives a union ex­clu­sive au­thor­i­ty to ne­go­ti­ate col­lec­tive­ly on be­half of work­ers and to bind work­ers through col­lec­tive agree­ments.

The in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tor al­so raised con­cerns that the amend­ment by­pass­es the es­tab­lished cer­ti­fi­ca­tion process un­der the In­dus­tri­al Re­la­tions Act, which re­quires a union to demon­strate ma­jor­i­ty work­er sup­port.

“Un­der the In­dus­tri­al Re­la­tions Act... the board must be sat­is­fied that the union has on the rel­e­vant date more than 50 per cent of the work­ers com­prised in that bar­gain­ing unit as mem­bers in good stand­ing,” he said.

De la Bastide de­scribed this re­quire­ment as a “de­mo­c­ra­t­ic el­e­ment” with­in the leg­is­la­tion be­cause it en­sures that a union has the back­ing of a ma­jor­i­ty of work­ers be­fore be­ing grant­ed ex­clu­sive bar­gain­ing au­thor­i­ty.