Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has de­fend­ed leg­is­la­tion aimed at restor­ing the Oil­fields Work­ers’ Trade Union’s (OW­TU) rights fol­low­ing Petrotrin’s 2018 re­struc­tur­ing, re­ject­ing claims that the mea­sure breach­es the Con­sti­tu­tion or in­fringes on the rights of Her­itage Pe­tro­le­um Ltd and Paria Fu­el Trad­ing em­ploy­ees.

Speak­ing dur­ing de­bate on the Mis­cel­la­neous Pro­vi­sions (Her­itage Pe­tro­le­um, Paria Fu­el Trad­ing and Guaracara Re­fin­ing Vest­ing) (Amend­ment) Bill, 2026, Per­sad-Bisses­sar ar­gued that it was the pre­vi­ous Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) ad­min­is­tra­tion—not the cur­rent gov­ern­ment—that vi­o­lat­ed work­ers’ rights by fail­ing to pre­serve suc­ces­sor rights when Petrotrin was dis­man­tled.

The Prime Min­is­ter was re­spond­ing to con­cerns raised by for­mer en­er­gy min­is­ter Stu­art Young, who ar­gued that the leg­is­la­tion im­prop­er­ly in­ter­feres with mat­ters that should be de­ter­mined by the In­dus­tri­al Court and im­pos­es union rep­re­sen­ta­tion on work­ers.