‘WHAT AM I TO DO NOW?’

An­na-Lisa Paul & Kay-Marie Fletch­er

The an­nounce­ment by fer­tilis­er gi­ant Nu­trien Ltd on Mon­day that it would be clos­ing its doors in Trinidad caught hun­dreds of em­ploy­ees by sur­prise, leav­ing them stunned, scared and more ner­vous about the fu­ture.

Three em­ploy­ees spoke with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day about how the clo­sure has left them reel­ing.

Forced to start over afresh as they strug­gle to pick up the pieces, one long-time em­ploy­ee said news of the clo­sure hit him hard as he faces the chal­lenge of nav­i­gat­ing the job mar­ket once again.

“A 22-year-old ca­reer just like that was over.

“What am I to do now? And for the many oth­er fel­low work­ers, our thoughts are the same. This will af­fect more than just our fam­i­lies, but the econ­o­my of this coun­try. I pray and hope that the Gov­ern­ment can in­ter­vene and save our fam­i­lies and friends and com­mu­ni­ties from this hor­ri­ble sit­u­a­tion.”

Fol­low­ing a town hall meet­ing yes­ter­day, em­ploy­ees say they were left feel­ing fur­ther de­ject­ed af­ter learn­ing that their sev­er­ance pack­ages would be cal­cu­lat­ed to the “bare min­i­mum” and that no en­hanced of­fers would be ex­tend­ed to staff.

The three em­ploy­ees voiced con­cerns that the monies to be paid are re­port­ed­ly be­ing cal­cu­lat­ed us­ing an out­dat­ed for­mu­la and ac­tu­al­ly leave them more dis­en­fran­chised than their for­mer col­leagues who would have left the com­pa­ny in 2020, dur­ing the last re­trench­ment ex­er­cise.

The em­ploy­ees whose ser­vice all ex­ceed 20 years each, took um­brage at what Nu­trien will be pay­ing out.

One em­ploy­ee said, “It’s un­der­whelm­ing as com­pared to the past pay­outs.

“There was a re­trench­ment in 2020 and they would have got­ten more mon­ey than per­sons be­ing re­trenched now.”

A sec­ond em­ploy­ee al­leged, “Gov­ern­ment got greedy start­ing with port fees. The Gov­ern­ment look­ing for quick mon­ey, not any­thing long term.”

He claimed no in­put had been sought from lo­cals and that every­thing had been de­cid­ed by of­fi­cials at the head of­fice in Cana­da.

Com­pa­ny of­fi­cials yes­ter­day con­firmed that, “Near­ly all cur­rent roles at the Point Lisas fa­cil­i­ty will be af­fect­ed.”

Work­force re­duc­tions, mean­while, will be im­ple­ment­ed fol­low­ing con­sul­ta­tion. “Some em­ploy­ees may leave ear­li­er in the process, while a small num­ber of em­ploy­ees may be re­quired for a pe­ri­od of time to sup­port the safe tran­si­tion of the fa­cil­i­ty.”

Of­fi­cials com­mis­er­at­ed with the em­ploy­ees that, “This fa­cil­i­ty is much more than a place where we come to work each day.

“It rep­re­sents liveli­hoods, friend­ships, and com­mu­ni­ty. To­geth­er, we have ac­com­plished a great deal, and we can be proud of what we achieved here.”

The com­pa­ny re­fused to an­nounce in­di­vid­ual out­comes and end dates yes­ter­day.

In­stead, of­fi­cials said, “Those de­tails, in­clud­ing which roles may be re­quired to sup­port the tran­si­tion, will be fi­nalised fol­low­ing con­sul­ta­tion.”

Fi­nal re­trench­ment de­ci­sions will on­ly be made af­ter con­sul­ta­tions are com­plet­ed, and these meet­ings are to be led by des­ig­nat­ed HR lead­ers and rep­re­sen­ta­tives.

Coun­sel­lors were said to be on-site from yes­ter­day.

Nu­trien will in­def­i­nite­ly shut down its Trinidad Ni­tro­gen op­er­a­tions at the Point Lisas Fa­cil­i­ty fol­low­ing an ex­ten­sive re­view of strate­gic al­ter­na­tives and en­gage­ment with rel­e­vant stake­hold­ers.

In a for­mal an­nounce­ment on Mon­day, the com­pa­ny said that, due to on­go­ing nat­ur­al gas con­straints and un­cer­tain­ty, this was de­ter­mined to be the op­ti­mal path to en­hance free cash flow and re­turn on in­vest­ed cap­i­tal.

Nu­trien pre­vi­ous­ly im­ple­ment­ed a con­trolled shut­down of the fa­cil­i­ty on Oc­to­ber 23, 2025, in re­sponse to port ac­cess re­stric­tions and a lack of re­li­able and eco­nom­ic nat­ur­al gas sup­ply that re­duced the free cash flow con­tri­bu­tion of the Trinidad Ni­tro­gen op­er­a­tions over an ex­tend­ed pe­ri­od of time.

A third em­ploy­ee, with over 20 years of ser­vice, re­vealed his “ac­ci­den­tal” en­try in­to the sec­tor and how it turned in­to a life-long ca­reer which en­abled him to suc­cess­ful­ly raise two chil­dren.

Re­veal­ing the fear he has now been left with fol­low­ing the an­nounce­ment, the anx­ious man said he is not an­gry but dis­ap­point­ed.

“Hav­ing left sec­ondary school not know­ing what di­rec­tion I want­ed to head in was a bit scary. My aim at this time was to talk to a lot of peo­ple around me and get some ideas of what I could do for a ca­reer and study along that path.

“Luck­i­ly enough, one of my neigh­bours was a teacher at the then-San Fer­nan­do Tech­ni­cal In­sti­tute and he told me about all of the ter­tiary pro­grammes that they of­fered and my eyes lit up when I saw Process Plant Op­er­a­tions.

“Such a unique name and oc­cu­pa­tion. So I pro­ceed­ed to do the two-year course and com­plet­ed it with ex­cel­lent re­sults. Now was the time to choose com­pa­nies and send out re­sumes.

“I took the news­pa­pers and watched the tele­vi­sion like a hawk (as so­cial me­dia back in 2004 was not as pop­u­lar or may not even have been here in Trinidad as yet.)

“My at­ten­tion was caught by the en­er­gy gi­ant PCS Ni­tro­gen and the fa­cil­i­ty they op­er­at­ed in Point Lisas.

“I sent in my re­sume and prayed to God that I would be called for an in­ter­view.

“Two weeks lat­er, I was called and the process start­ed. Hear­ing about the com­pa­ny and shift work from the in­ter­view­ers made me smile ... all I was think­ing about was the amount of mon­ey I would have made.

“It was mu­sic to a 21-year-old. I start­ed to work and build my ca­reer at this fer­tilis­er gi­ant. Through­out my ca­reer, there were many chal­lenges. Ex­ams and hard work to get to where I am to­day.

“But through it all, I was able to get mar­ried, buy new ve­hi­cles, buy a home and start a fam­i­ly.

“It was a ca­reer that af­ford­ed me a com­fort­able life, be­ing able to go on fam­i­ly va­ca­tions year­ly and I felt that I had every­thing to be thank­ful and hap­py for.

“But one year ago that all changed. In the blink of an eye, the com­pa­ny made a de­ci­sion to take the Trinidad site of pro­duc­tion due to gas short­ages and raised port fees. All of our con­tract staff were im­me­di­ate­ly sent home. The per­ma­nent work­ers like my­self were kept on and salaries paid as usu­al.

“On Oc­to­ber 5, there was an email sent to all staff of a town hall that would take place in 45 min­utes. Now, such short no­tice left a lot of the work­ers con­cerned cause this couldn’t be good news. At the meet­ing, we were told of the sit­u­a­tion and that all work­ers will be af­fect­ed and that sev­er­ance pack­ages will be con­sult­ed with the HR De­part­ment. What we had been dread­ing for an en­tire year was fi­nal­ly hap­pen­ing.

“The at­mos­phere changed; you could see every­one’s face in pure shock and dis­be­lief. The thoughts start­ed to run through my mind... what will I do now, how will I be able to af­ford my mort­gage, my car pay­ments, my child who is pur­su­ing ter­tiary ed­u­ca­tion now, how will I be able to af­ford school fees?”

“My chest tight­ened and I could feel my heart pound­ing. I took a deep breath and said in my mind, God, you’re in charge and I leave it up to you to help me find a way.”