Focus on Trinidad
Rothenberg, Jane & Wishner, Amy
The following article treats the oil industry in Trinidad, the industry that is the lifeblood of the Trinidad economy. For that reason it is affected by and affects all classes, sectors and...
...In addition, it was thought that union leaders could be offered the role of directors and consultants in the company in order to create a bond of "national unity...
...The effective royalty rate was 10 per cent, while rates in Venezuela ranged from 16.66 to 30 per cent...
...From its position in the heart of the industry (Point-a-Pierre was the site of Texaco's refinery operations), the rebels succeeded in changing the delegate system which had characterized union elections and replacing it with "adult franchise whereby every worker could vote for the executive officer of his/her choice...
...Nor did it have plans to establish a company fiefdom with massive facilities on the island...
...It is possible that the locating of Texaco's largest refinery outside of the United States in TrinidadTobago was considered a mark of distinction for Trinidad's colonial government...
...For example, out of funds earmarked for social services, hardly anything has been spent...
...Texaco Trinidad does not even maintain financial records within the country...
...The emphasis placed on the development of a petrochemical industry to diversify the oil sector led to the creation of special additional concessions for petrochemical producers within the framework of the Aid to Pioneer Industries Program...
...Forbes 1974 Annual Report on American Industry...
...But labor in TrinidadTobago was not willing to wait the ten years considered necessary for economic "take-off' to get a share of what its work had created and the resources that lay under Trinidad's soil...
...s ' By 1969 its net earnings had crept up to a relatively unimpressive $3.6 million, producing only 3,250 barrels of crude per day...
...The coming to power of the People's National Movement with its call for nationalism and an end to old guard politics had a profound impact on the OWTU membership...
...The petrochemical and crude oil investments are the major ingredients in the rapid influx of foreign investment-doubling in the space of two years, 1973 to 1974...
...4. Texas...
...From that they are cut off completely...
...market...
...Federal Energy Administration report "Trends in Refinery Capacity and Utilization...
...1959...
...Gas is already being used to help produce the island's electricity and a pipeline from Amoco's facilities is planned to further increase its availability...
...The company did not, however, agree to invest a given annual sum in exploration or to produce a given amount of crude...
...And while the difference between the costs of producing oil and the per barrel price of oil is usually quite large (today the difference is so great that the relationship is almost meaningless) the oil companies were unwilling to explore for relatively high cost oil unless prices were extremely high...
...With the exception of a general requirement that off-shore exploration be conducted with "due dilligence," there was no requirement for relinquishment of land (under 30-year lease) for failure to do so...
...Given their shrinking economic base and their lack of a popular base within a Black and East Indian society, this group could not hope to perpetuate their power once Trinidad-Tobago achieved independence...
...The early 1950's saw the development of a new superstructure that would eventually take over the political and economic organization of the country from the British colonial apparatus...
...The overwhelming majority of Trinidad's products now come to the United States, particularly to the industrial and populated Northeast...
...By 1974 the agricultural sector had decreased to 15 per cent and services and construction combined had increased to 38 per cent...
...Texaco had preferred to keep labor peace through raising wages and allowing its labor force to decrease through attrition...
...1959...
...navy was stationed offshore...
...Whatever the fancy footwork, the Trinidad government signed a management contract which gave Tesoro control over finance, production and marketing...
...More specifically, the three forces that largely determine the nature of the industry are the multinational corporation, the Trinidad government, and the oil workers...
...As previously mentioned, the great bulk of the crude refined by Texaco Trinidad is imported...
...Tesoro was probably acceptable precisely because it was a newcomer to the industry and would not be as likely to draw fire from labor as a large multinational...
...ASSOCIATED FACILITIES ADDITIONAL COMMENTS COMP- OWNER '000b/d DESCENDING PRIORITY EMPL- (OPERATING CAPACITIES) 'LD INITIAL OYEES CURRENT Freeport, Bahamas 1970 BORCO (65% 250 Low sulphur residual NA 57,000 b/d desulfurization Approximately $300 milNepco, 35% 500 fuel oil...
...By the 1930's, the preeminence of the petroleum sector within the Trinidad economy had become established and along with it, a "highly modern, organized and disciplined labor force...
...Half of this investment was in oil and petrochemicals, mostly from U.S...
...It is interesting to note that Texaco does not anticipate any material reduction in net income as a result of this acquisition...
...Finally, this group has no hope for entrance into the bourgeoisie...
...When the rise in central heating in the United Kingdom expanded the demand for fuel oils, the Texaco plant in Trinidad-Tobago strengthened its position in fuel oils to meet that demand...
...For that reason it is affected by and affects all classes, sectors and interests within the country...
...8. Ibid...
...British Petroleum,AnnualReport, 1962...
...entered Trinidad-Tobago, each setting up both producing and refining operations...
...What's more, it was expanding refining capacity and was looking forward to meeting the increasing demand for oil products in Europe and Africa...
...OWTU leadership waged a constant struggle against tendencies toward craft unionism among its more skilled members by speaking out against the fragmentation and stratification of labor in the industry...
...At the same time, this period saw a mushrooming of the government bureaucracy and steady growth in the service sector...
...The post-World War II period saw a decline in the agricultural sector and the slow expansion of industry, largely due to the development of the oil sector...
...And in 1969...
...In other words, the government (and a favored middle sector that constituted their social and political support) would only divide up the pie when it had decided the pie was big enough...
...6 Thus, the nature of working class and popular struggle itself has changed: "The emergence and formation of the ULF brings to an end the general rebellious phase of workers' struggles in the postindependence era and has opened the phase of concrete, organized struggle for state power...
...Banking is out of their hands and always has been...
...Natural gas is often found in the same pockets of the earth as oil...
...While facilities for refining had been developed, for the most part capacity was geared to the processing of indigenously produced oil...
...A lube oil plant was being added at a cost of over $20 million and all stages of petroleum refining were being carried out including the production of petrochemicals...
...Ibid...
...s 7 Nor did worker militance let up on the retrenchment issue...
...In 1971 Texaco employed over 8,000 Trinidadians, both as operators and as administrators...
...Weekes responded by declaring that the government could not buy him out...
...By 1971, Amoco predicted that oil from its new offshore find (immediately pumping 50,000 barrels per day and increasing Trinidad-Tobago's production by one-third) would be supplying 150,000 bpd by 1973...
...gasoline Penuelas, Puerto 1955 CORCO (38% 23 Residual fuel, nap- 2,400 88,000 b/d desulfurization Corco has joint venture Rico controlled by 161 htha, gasoline...
...Caribbean Dialogue, 17...
...BP's investments in Trinidad-Tobago had been part of a wide-spread move among the multinational oil companies to diversify their crude supplies after the Suez crisis disrupted their Middle East operations...
...The oil industry in the late 1960's could be summarized as a tug of war...
...In spite of the constant harassment and imprisonment of union leaders, the following years saw the sharpening of worker militance...
...Also interesting is the fact that the chairman of the Continental Bank of Illinois, Tesoro's sugar daddy, was also a director of Texaco, which certainly had interest in the future of the National Petroleum Company...
...Eventually the government agreed to pay TT S45 million for the company...
...Like Texaco, it concentrated in refining but, like BP, it also sold its interests...
...Trinidad Guardian, 1975...
...Trinidad's official enthusiastic response was not so welcomed in government circles in London...
...Thus, by 1968...
...The reason for this is two-fold...
...Farrell, The Multinational Corporations and Caribbean Dialogue (Toronto), Vol II, nos...
...Thus it must also be pointed out that it is the company that determines the kind of products refined from Trinidad's oil...
...THE CURRENT PERIOD In 1962 when Trinidad-Tobago achieved final independence from Britain, Texaco had been expanding its operations in the country for six years, the People's National Movement (PNM) had developed from a mass movement into a firmly entrenched government bureaucracy, and the OWTU had been consolidated under new and militant leadership...
...Corporate Annual Reports and SEC 10K forms.30 References THE CARIBBEAN EXPORT REFINING CENTER I. Lieuwen, Edwin Petroleum in Venezuela, Russel & Russell, 1954, pg 21...
...In addition, the joining of the agricultural and urban proletariat would have meant the joining of Black and East Indian labor, undercutting the government-inspired racialism that was a serious obstacle to unified working-class action...
...As the fee barely covers the cost of processing, the company's Trinidad subsidiary ostensibly does not make a penny and who ever heard of taxing a company on money it did not make...
...Ibid...
...Chicago's Continental Bank of Illinois had helped set up the company originally, and when Tesoro decided to go into Trinidad-Tobago...
...The OWTU understood that the tendency toward rapidly decreasing employment levels was a general characteristic of the highly mechanized industry...
...6 Instead capital has either been invested in petroleumrelated endeavors or accumulated for such investment...
...Thus when BP entered Trinidad-Tobago in 1956, buying up three small companies, it was not drawn by Trinidad-Tobago's refining facilities and geographical location as was Texaco...
...distillate (1974...
...In 1961 and 1962 when consumption of oil products in the United States was almost static and consumption in the rest of the capitalist world was rising by 10 per cent per year, the Trinidad refinery was making a considerable contribution to the company's ability to supply foreign markets...
...It was as a result of that strike that the workers realized their power...
...7. These figures were selected for NACLA from the Statistical Guidebook of the Netherlands Antilles, 1974 and ENA, 1969 (Petroleumindustrie) by OSACI in the Netherlands...
...The early history of the union incorporated the heritage of both the militance of the22 Butler movement and the desire of the colonial government to contain labor strife in this increasingly important sector of the economy...
...The Industrial Stabilization Act sealed the issue of the government's class position...
...Farrell, The Multinational Corporations, 166...
...6 The issue, however, goes beyond the question of whether or not Texaco's promises were ambiguous and whether or not they were kept...
...The real catalyst, however, and the company that was to determine Trinidad-Tobago's place in the international oil picture was the Texas Company, now known as Texaco...
...for more information on these cancelled projects see US...
...The government responded by saying that the Tesoro-Trinidad government operation was not the National Petroleum Company...
...By 1975 the dismal forecast of shrinking oil reserves had given way to predictions that Trinidad's new off-shore reserves would last 20 years...
...But it must be remembered that Trinidad-Tobago is quite small...
...with Hercor ChemTesoro Petro...
...Quite apart from government tax incentives, however, large multinational oil companies have little difficulty in exempting their refining activities from taxation...
...Despite high production levels, in 1968 signs of a decline were surfacing 4 and employment in the industry was falling at a drastic rate...
...Thousands of people filled the streets decrying unemployment, foreign economic domination, and miserable social conditions...
...But more and more, "Butler saw himself as the Christ of Trinidad-Tobago...
...Nor was the Trinidad facility tied to traditional sources of supply and traditional markets...
...It offered neither international experience, markets nor financial resources...
...9. see New York Times, October 19, 1975 and October 26, 1975 for more on Carey's empire...
...After all, the period from 1965 to 1969 was described by the Trinidad Guardian as "four years of relatively peaceful labor relations...
...3" This activity culminated in 1965 when striking sugar workers threatened to break away from the reactionary and corrupt leadership of the All Trinidad Sugar Workers and link up with the OWTU...
...BP And The Spirit Of Retrenchment In February 1963, growing contradictions in the oil industry exploded when 2,640 workers went out on strike24 against the British Petroleum Company...
...The resultant labor shortage was resolved through the importation of East Indians to work as agricultural wage laborers...
...Annual Report, 1956...
...It did mean that the area which had previously been somewhat anomolous to the economic integration of the Western hemisphere by U.S...
...The company's investments on the island had been made during a particular period of crisis and once this crisis had passed, BP's commitment to its Trinidad ventures began to wane...
...If, for example, there is reduced production, for whatever reason, in one area we can immediately offset this by increases elsewhere...
...multinationalcorporations...
...Guy Griffith, unpublished history of the OWTU...
...By 1957, one year after its purchase by the company, Texaco Trinidad was largely responsible for a 14.5 per cent increase in the company's gross income from sales and services...
...For it was the organizational democracy and uncorrupt, militant leadership that came to characterize the OWTU in the early 1960's and that would ultimately determine the union's ability to confront the sharpening class conflict of the post-independence period...
...The Report went on to recommend that automation in the industry be encouraged and employment brought to the lowest possible levels...
...The unemployed, centered in the urban areas, had been profoundly affected by the upsurge in Black-Power militance in the United States and had begun to channel their discontent into discussion, agitation and organization...
...A myriad of companies besides Amoco-including Phillips Petroleum, Deminex-Agip, Occidental, -Ashland, ENI and Amerada Hess among others-have also bought into the new oil-rich marine sites...
...28-37...
...Franklin Harvey, in his The Rise and Fall of Party Politics in Trinidad and Tobago, describes this process: The creole commercial and planter class in alliance with the foreign capitalist began to undermine the power of the nationalist party by propaganda, an economic squeeze and supporting the Democratic Labor Party-the East Indian based opposition party...
...A large portion of TOC's products went to markets in Europe and West Africa...
...Tubal Uriah Butler, an oil worker and a Baptist preacher, brough his message of "deliverance from toil and suffering" to all sectors of Trinidad's working class, and by the late 1930's his movement was leading hunger marches, demonstrations and general strikes which rocked the entire country...
...Ibid 42...
...companies...
...7 Texaco's third "concession" was to minimize the number of foreigners employed by the company...
...33 Internationally, the Middle East was back in service and OPEC was not posing a significant threat to the multinationals...
...2 (slightly smaller than Delaware...
...Hess Oil Due to Get Gasoline Import Quota" Wall Street Journal, November 6, 1967...
...In 1956 the refinery already had a capacity of 80,000 bpd...
...4 Promises, Promises...
...While the position taken by these organizations is not surprising, the total subordination of the local business community to company directives has important implications for the government's proposed development of "a nationally-oriented private sector...
...14 Presently Amoco produces three quarters of all Trinidad's crude...
...It also was to include the creation of a National Commercial Bank...
...Texaco was conducting exploration activities in 35 countries, operating refineries in 38, marketing its products in 130 and employing over 75,000 people...
...By 1962 the capacity of Texaco's Point-a-Pierre refinery had tripled and the refinery had become the largest in the British Commonwealth...
...Foreign industrial capital may have created a modern labor force, but it brought with it another modem creation: chronic unemployment...
...1 And what did this investment do for Texaco...
...While agriculture continued to play an important (although decreasing) role in the economy, two factors provoked a rapid shift toward the predominance of industrial capital...
...The method is quite simple: Texaco computes its refinery costs either at no profit or at a loss...
...A parliamentary system of government was established and a new plan for economic development was instituted during this period...
...As in Puerto Rico, one of the major thrusts behind the program was the expansion of employment...
...In the case of the English-speaking Caribbean, British economic domination began to give way before the expansion of U.S...
...Trinidad's vital resource utilized massive and immovable refining facilities...
...NA Residual fuel, gas- NA 125,000 b/d desulf...
...companies in the Fortune 500...
...In addition, the Trinidad working population included a small sector of peasant farmers, wage laborers who supplemented their income through subsistence farming, and a growing number of service and clerical workers...
...Whereas in 1946, out of a labor force of 218,000, official unemployment was 7 per cent 2 3 today, out of a labor force of 265,000, the official rate is 16 per cent...
...The OWTU countered Shell's lay-offs with the accusation that jobs were available but that the company preferred to hire cheaper contract labor...
...Just prior to the TOC purchase, Texaco bought out Brighton Terminal, a company that was formed in 1949 to operate an ocean terminal and a small refinery...
...Stork, Joe "Middle East Oil and the Energy Crisis" Part Two, MERIP...
...The first part is divided into three subsections which introduce the three major forces within the industry and discuss the nature of their development up until the time of Trinidad's independence in 1962...
...Oil and Gas Journal, February 18, 1974...
...the keeping of labor costs to a minimum to allow the island's oil to remain competitive...
...Consequently he paved the way for the Butler movement that came after him...
...McColl-Fronterac, a Canadian oil company in which Texaco had an equity interest maintained a wholly-owned subsidiary on the island, Antilles Petroleum...
...By 1961-62, Williams and the professional middle class leadership had reconciled their differences with the creole commercial and planter class and foreign capitalists, and then launched a severe attack on the DLP and the East Indian population...
...Trinidad government policy was equally liberal in the area of royalties...
...commerce-18...
...They can, however, use their influence to support company interests...
...6s Without commenting on the economic soundness of the Trinidad government's capitalist ventures, it was clear that the government had placed itself squarely in contradiction with the Trinidad working class...
...And secondly, as a rule the petroleum giants, except under extreme pressure, are completely unwilling to make any commitments as to levels of production...
...As we shall see, the workers in the oil industry have instead been thrust into a vanguard position in relation to an increasingly conscious working class...
...4 What did this mean in practice...
...Farrell...
...The strike against BP lasted a month and a half and involved well over 2,000 workers...
...This did not happen...
...Trinidad-Tobago was only one small part of these larger machinations, but its place was being carved out...
...This movement, which arose out of the most advanced sectors of the working class, incorporated through its religious utopian vision the political and economic demands of the class as a whole...
...Trinidad Guardian, February 1, 1976...
...The union would become a vehicle for protecting the rights of its membership, for expressing the political and class experience of the oil workers and for the development of a consciousness that understood conflict in the oil industry as reflective of more fundamental problems facing the society as a whole...
...A more important victory for the union, however, was the consolidation of a new internal structure...
...This led in turn to the enactment of new, repressive labor legislation at the insistence of the petroleum companies...
...The arrival of Texaco heralded the centralization and expansion of the oil industry and the predominance of the modem imperialist corporation as the primary exploiter of labor in the industry...
...1,700 238,000 b/d desulfuriza- Exxor...
...at the suggestion of the OWTU, would have stabilized the situation...
...Texaco- Trinidad News, June...
...Its crude production was on the increase, its sales of refined products were up and in 1956, its income of over $300 million made Texaco one of the top 12 U.S...
...However, in the end, the OWTU did not win an unqualified victory: 84 workers, instead of the initial 300 were laid off with increased severence pay...
...sa But the question remained, what was in it for TrinidadTobago...
...In an astonishing upset, the ULF won ten seats (out of 36) in the Trinidad-Tobago Legislature, more seats than any party except the ruling PNM of Eric Williams...
...2. Ibid., pg...
...Trinidad-Tobago was a British colony and it was British capital and the British government that provoked the development of the industry during the early period...
...Trinidad Guardian, April 29, 1969...
...The second part discusses the evolution of the industry from 1962 to the present...
...This process was accelerated in the late 1950's with the establishment of Trinidad as a refining center, the diversification of the petroleum sector, and the concerted effort by the government to attract foreign investment in manufacture...
...28 By the early 1960's, the tendency represented by Rojas would also be overrun...
...Marine production, which had grown rapidly after the 1952 discovery of the Soldado marine field in the Gulf of Paria, was also entering a period of decline...
...Trinidad Guardian, 1975...
...Texaco, not to be left out, also entered the field and began in early 1976 its own seismographic survey to look for oil...
...Due to his identification with the Butler movement and his "dislike for the policies of the OWTU leadership," Weekes refused to associate with the union during his early years in the oil fields...
...plants declined while runs in the Western Hemisphere rose 4.6 per cent, the largest increase attributable to Texaco Trinidad...
...chemical plants produce ical, PPG Industries, aromatics, olefins, etc...
...Texaco Inc., 10K form) Thus, in short order the Texas Company was blessed with a market that was ready-made and expanding...
...9 In fact, the only explicit aim of the government vis-a-vis the oil industry was to offer "incentives to increase exploration by the oil companies and [to] encourage a petrochemical industry...
...In other words, whereas foreign investment in industry by no means employed a large number of people in absolute terms, it did, in fact, come to exploit a relatively large proportion of the work force...
...Our emphasis I would like to say that we are very proud of our record here...
...And while the movement resulted in the severe repression and imprisonment of its leader, it also provoked the enactment of important reforms...
...As soon as the enthusiasm died down, however, the class nature of the government and the class contradictions within the society again became apparent...
...James goes on to say that this grouping has no political tradition and no coherent ideology...
...At the other end of the spectrum...
...PRESENT OP.CAP...
...Thus to understand the development of the Trinidad oil industry since the 1950's we will now turn to the moment when the boys from Texas decided to make Trinidad-Tobago one of their many homes...
...And yet the most capital-intensive of industries, the one which employed the least amount of labor, was given nine additional concessions including an outright 10-year income tax holidy, exemption in perpetuo from duties on certain imported raw materials and the right to compulsory acquisition of "right to user" land, meaning access to land whether or not the property's owner was in agreement...
...At the time that the Texas Company purchased the Trinidad Oil Company, Texaco was enjoying the highest net income in its history...
...offices...
...3 and 4 (April-May 1976), 5. 23...
...income distribution (1975): top 20% of the population received 55.2% of the income...
...The element within Trinidad society that was able to mobilize the mass support necessary for the institutionalization of parliamentary democracy was the country's Black professional sector...
...captured the feelings and imaginations of the Black masss...
...FOCUS ON TRINIDAD I. Trinidad Guardian...
...Texaco Inc., SEC IO.K Form, 1975...
...All decision making power is centered in the company's U.S...
...Finally, we will examine the present-day context of the oil industry in TrinidadTobago...
...5 PRE-INDEPENDENCE AND THE PNM While Trinidad-Tobago gained formal independence in 1962, the seeds of the new independent state took root during the last phase of British colonial rule...
...So the proposed deal with Texaco was finally retracted...
...In the post-war period, however, crude production began to decline and Trinidad-Tobago's main role became that of a refining center for imported crude...
...Superport: 3 jetty lion investment...
...3. The Trinidad Oil Economy (Trinidad: Government Printing Office...
...Trevor Farrel, a Trinidadian economist, in a study on oil in Trinidad, proved quite conclusively, using Trinidad crude production and world prices in 1970 as an indicator, that Trinidad's oil could have been refined into products that would have raised government revenues from petroleum by a significant 19 per cent...
...During the war years he had volunteered in the Overseas Service in the Middle East and Italy where he was able to "get literature that made him think about socialism...
...If work stopped in oil it would take a few days for everything to come to a standstill...
...Ibid., 25...
...The real question is how advantageous is a massive refining operation owned by a foreign company for a host country...
...Miami Herald, December 26, 1971...
...If it had ever been doubted that it represented the interests of capital, and particularly foreign capital, the ISA served to dispel that doubt...
...As we shall see Texaco's primary strategy for pressuring the present Trinidad government is its assertion that Texaco is far more important to Trinidad than Trinidad is to Texaco...
...Thus to understand the history of the OWTU, we must look at it within this context...
...BUTLER mental differences between Butler with his strong worker indentification and advocacy of confrontational tactics and the OWTU leadership with its collaborationist tendencies, both Butler and Rojas stifled the development of democratic unionism by maintaining strong personal control over the rank and file...
...In the last few years, however, the Trinidad-Tobago government has decided it is worthwhile to extract its natural gas, and in 1976 instituted a national gas company to rationalize the industry...
...Nor was the union immune from the anti-communist propaganda of the post-war period which provoked them to break ties with the leftist World Federation of Trade Unions...
...Caribbean Dialogue, 8. 63...
...They wanted the whole pie...
...The island was considered a mature and extensively prospected region where the inventory of unproven and unprocessed acreage was limited by the size of the country...
...As their program states: The ULF now has thrust upon it the historical responsibility of taking this 400 year old struggle to its logical conclusion-to organize the working class, to prepare our people to assume state power and to use that power to transform this society from the brutal decadence which now envelopes it to one of peace, bread and justice, to one in which the exploitation of man by man [is replaced by] a new democracy...
...Within five short years, Tesoro progressed from a struggling neophyte to "the fastest growing energy company in the United States...
...A figure for government tax revenues from oil refining is not available...
...One of the escalators was the formation of the Council of Progressive Trade Unions (CPTU) formed in 1968 by the OWTU and several other unions...
...In addition, sales from markets to which Texaco Trinidad's products were sold registered substantial increases...
...This was due to the combined factors of the nature of Trinidad-Tobago's oil resources and, above all, the needs of the multinational oil companies...
...In fact by 1975, large sectors of the Trinidad working class did not want a piece at all...
...The OWTU which concerns itself closely with problems confronting the oil industry, should contribute its experience and guidance in formulating realistic manpower and wage programs for the industry...
...While Texaco had thus far been able to contain labor strife by raising wages, it understood that the OWTU's increasing militance could seriously undercut both its control over its labor force and the general political stability so necessary to the continued success of its operations...
...Ibid., 16...
...However, it was not able to crush the organizations involved, particularly the unions...
...See section on the PNM] The final development in the sixties and seventies is changes in the marketing and types of Trinidad's products...
...3 Government action in 1965, however, went beyond temporary measures...
...Yet the meager wage increases offered by the companies were countered by meek demands on the part of the union leadership...
...61 The government's development strategy, however, prevented any of this money from trickling down to the vast majority of Trinidadians...
...Whereas in 1970 oil had supplied 20 per cent of government oil revenues, by 1974 the industry was supplying a whopping 70 per cent...
...These worries were formalized into policy considerations in the period following the BP strike...
...46 Bus workers went out on strike, electricity workers were threatening to walk out, and in the oil industry, a repetition of the 1965 crisis was in the making...
...The government took immediate overt and covert action...
...Aruba, Netherlands 1929 EXXON NA Residual fuel oil...
...The OWTU leadership, with its base in the most vital sector of the economy, understood that they had considerable leverage and an educational opportunity not to be missed...
...While certain grades of crude lend themselves more efficiently to certain products, given modern refining methods, the grade of crude is by no means a determining factor...
...Printing Office), 1975...
...As we shall see in Part II, the 1960's and '70's saw the PNM in an increasingly precarious position as it tried to develop policies to both preserve the conditions for capitalist exploitation in Trinidad-Tobago and maintain the popular base it needed to keep itself in power...
...In 1956 the Rebel group, led by George Weekes, captured the leadership of the Point-a-Pierre branch of the union...
...In 1919 a general strike on the docks spilled over onto the sugar estates...
...jet terminals for 400,000 DWT ery financed by loans fuels...
...Profit maximization requires absolute flexibility to increase and decrease production in any given country in order to respond to world-wide changes in price and demand patterns...
...the PNM announced the creation of a National Petroleum Company...
...Tesoro was a Texas-based company formed in 1964 that, with sales of S250,000, was operating at a loss...
...The British company had neither the financial resources to maintain its operations nor access to crucial supplies of Venezuelan crude needed to feed its refineries...
...In 1944, the union's president resigned to take a position with the colonial government, demonstrating the vulnerability of union leadership in this vital sector to government attempts at cooptation...
...After the war he became an oil worker, became active in the Butler movement, and carried out organizing activity in both the oil and sugar industries...
...For the government, the threat was even more serious...
...Gomes was proud of his accomplishments...
...56 While Trinidad-Tesoro was to bring prosperity to the company, it was not to bring peace to the government...
...In 1959, the Industrial Development Corporation (the counterpart to Puerto Rico's Fomento) was established as the official promoter of the Pioneer Industries Program...
...More specifically, up until World War II, Trinidad-Tobago's oil industry was largely based on the flexing of British military muscle...
...Air Force commenced and by 1946 over 20 million barrels of oil per year were produced and refined in Trinidad-Tobago...
...The PNM has taken the position that free and unrestrained collective bargaining is disfunctional in the light of Trinidad's dire economic circumstances...
...firstly, Amoco concentrates on production and, secondly, Amoco entered the scene much later, rather undramatically, in 1961...
...transport and communications-9...
...Under British colonial rule, thousands of Africans were brought to work as slave labor on the sugar plantations...
...The government had blundered badly given that Texaco had come to symbolize foreign domination within the country...
...3o Greater union democracy initiated by the Pointe-a-Pierre rebels began to erode Rojas' control over the union...
...The movement that emerged out of this situation did not, however, limit itself to the oil fields...
...13 Te\aco...
...Ryan, "Restructuring the Trinidad Economy," 200...
...This is not to say that British capital was no longer a force in the Caribbean, for British corporations, particularly those involved in agricultural activities, continued their exploitation of Caribbean labor and natural resources...
...Shell also had interests in Trinidad's oil industry...
...1524, Sixth Legislature of the Virgin Islands of the United States...
...BP invested in the late 1950's and 1960's when the island first began oil production...
...George Weekes, in an interview with Caribbean Dialogue, describes this first official strike action by the OWTU: Never will I forget the enthusiasm of the workers...
...The PNM accepted the thesis that given the so-called marginal profitability of TrinidadTobago's high cost oil and given the complexity of the industry, the country was "lucky to have large multinationals exploiting its resources, securing markets for its output, bearing the risks and providing the indispensable capital and technology which the country definitely could not provide...
...companies-scurrying for offshore exploration and exploitation rights...
...The political experience of the class must also be examined...
...Thus another element which was crucial to the development of the Trinidad working class was the size of the social formation...
...governments and U.S.-controlled international lending agencies, the independent Trinidad government began to develop industrial sites, roads, electric power facilities, water resources and training programs for the benefit of foreign corporations...
...3. Ibid., pg...
...They swiftly reacted by maintaining that the national oil company should not merely be a decorative fixture within the government appartus...
...Trinidad's industrialization process rested almost entirely on the country's oil industry...
...Within the labor movement, the PNM worked to sabotage George Weekes' leadership of the OWTU by arguing that Weekes' support of the Indian sugar workers represented an attempt to overthrow Black political leadership in Trinidad-Tobago...
...Ibid...
...We sincerely hope that nothing will come up in the future to mar this splendid record.26 national oil company as the beginning of truly national control over the country's resources, the foreign corporations and the government saw its significance quite differently...
...Business Latin America, May 18, 1972...
...Report of the Commission of Enquiry into the Oil Industry...
...So to round out the picture Amoco, a subsidiary of Standard Oil of Indiana, is left as the most important company to discuss...
...3 The oil industry was still the economic mainstay of the country...
...The government accepted this proposal and In October 1968 negotiations began with BP, which by this time was only too happy to unload its holdings...
...Refining has also expanded in new directions...
...capital was rapidly brought into the fold...
...Proclamation 3693, December 10, 1965...
...In 1950, a new constitution broadened the role of locally elected officials within both the legislature and the executive and the Aid to Pioneer Industries program was, put into practice...
...2 5 The Butler movement started in the oil fields and it was out of this movement that the present leadership in the Oilfields Workers' Trade Union was to emerge...
...In fact, as the appointment came at a time when a movement was afoot among electricity workers to gain OWTU representation, Weekes used the occasion to lash out at Williams, saying: The Prime Minister had stated that peace in Trinidad depended on peace in oil and he thought he would not have to worry about the electricity workers.., .but he was only mistaken...
...In short, we must struggle and be prepared always to give our dearest possession, life itself, to ensure that those who labour must hold the reins...
...Sources: statistical sources from the Economic Commission on Latin America, Business Latin America, Caribbean Dialogue and Claudio Velez, Latin America and the Caribbean, A Handbook.16 aid in the sale of the British-owned Trinidad Oil Company (TOC) to the Texas Company of the United States...
...capital...
...Marine production by 1975 had grown to account for 76 per cent of the total...
...The result of this process was a labor force which in 1970 was broken down (according to government categories) as follows: agriculture, 22 per cent...
...Amoco's Trinidad interests differ from those of Texaco in two respects...
...However, the government found itself running into conflict with the oil companies...
...44 This growing crisis within the oil sector was symptomatic of problems within the economy as a whole...
...The government commissioned a New York accounting firm to look into conditions in the oil industry...
...Trinidad Guardian, February 1, 1976...
...Trinidad Guardian, April 29, 1969...
...Texas Company...
...Then, according to Weekes, "it dawned on me that I should fight the leadership from within," and he joined with other Butlerites to form the Rebel group within the OWTU...
...Due to geological factors, oil was to be found in small accumulations requiring complex and expensive drilling procedures for recovery...
...Throughout the late 1960's, tension between the OWTU and the government escalated...
...Material compiled for NACLA by OSACI, Amsterdam, Netherlands...
...Franklin Harvey, Rise and Fall of Party Politics in Trinidad and Tobago (Toronto: New Beginning Movement), February 1974, 27...
...Trinidad Guardian, 1975...
...The fallacy in this argument lies not only in the nature of Te,aco's investment in Trinidadhighly sophisticated facilities that cannot be packed up and moved away- but in the fact that Texaco Trinidad forms a vital link in the operations of a company whose international profits and power are based on the careful integration of its component parts...
...But the whole incident demonstrated that the government was by no means ready to go it alone in the oil business and that the NPC scheme had the approval of the multinational oil companies operating in Trinidad-Tobago...
...47 By 1969 workers were on a slowdown at BP...
...The second factor was the direct investment of foreign industrial capital through the Aid to Pioneer Industries Program.21 Magnitude and direction of investment alone, however, do not determine the level of proletarianization and urbanization of the work force...
...Clearly if the PNM was to stay in power, a new plan for development was needed...
...This message pointed to the "two great lessons of the past year: " (1) That the enemies of the working class can be found in that wicked reactionary alliance of the foreign economic and political power, the local sell-out government and the state apparatus...
...And Texaco's local Board of Directors, composed of influential Trinidadians who sit on the boards of numerous other companies in addition to government advisory boards, as late as 1971 could not spend more than S100 without approval from the company's New York office...
...The pay hikes it won at Texaco, however, were not the only reason for the union's combative stance...
...Finally, the decline in Trinidad-Tobago's production resulted from the fact that its oil resources were considered high-cost reserves...
...employment structure (%): agriculture-15...
...economic hegemony was oil...
...Grace Company bought out and expanded an S80 million fertilizer plant, Texaco built a desulfurization plant and the production of petrochemicals has grown greatly...
...Trinidad-Tobago's business community was pointing to excessive government bureaucracy and high spending as the reason for a shaky economic situation...
...Company, Annual Report, 1956...
...Oil and Gas Journal, February 18, 1974...
...Some of these problems were real enough, some were temporary and some were blown out of proportion by the oil companies in their attempts to prove that it was only through the benevolence of foreign capital that TrinidadTobago's marginal oil industry was able to survive at all...
...The former was demonstrated in the unions' election of an East Indian lawyer to the leadership of the predominantly Negro organization...
...But the merger never came to pass...
...Croix, Virgin 1967 Amerada Hess 70 Residual fuel oil, 700 95,000 b/d desulfurizaIslands Corp...
...The union was able to objectively assess the direction taken by the established political parties and to resist government and corporate attempts at cooptation...
...8 assoc...
...Harvey, Rise and Fall, 19...
...Central Intelligence Agency, Intelligence Handbook: Export Refinink Centers of the World (June 1975...
...And while the labor' force in the industry had already decreased substantially, wholesale layoffs such as those demanded by BP would set a dangerous precedent...
...Foreign corporations were offered duty-free imports, income tax holidays and special depreciation allowances...
...By 1975 capacity had more than quadrupled and rumor has it that today the Texaco refinery in Trinidad-Tobago is running at 35 per cent capacity because of market conditions...
...official unemployment: 16% (estimates of total unemployment approximate 33...
...In any case, the deal was made and within a year Tesoro got its first dividends from Trinidad-Tobago amounting to S3.3 million...
...Perhaps the most central challenge to the union, however, was reflected in the reemergence of Butler who, with his militance and personal dynamism still intact after years in prison, repeatedly threatened to rob the OWTU of its membership...
...For example, dock workers, whose centrality to the island's economy and international contacts made them a particularly conscious sector of the class, organized themselves into worker assemblies...
...petrochemical tankers and 9 million bar- from Italian Gov't Confeedstocks . rels storage capacity...
...The answer to this question [depends on] the economic conditions and stability of the country being considered for such investment and how these compare with other countries competing for such investment...
...And while the population of Trinidad-Tobago is sorely in need of jobs, health care and other services, most of the money has been sent out of the country to earn interest in foreign banks...
...This was accompanied by the government's expansion of infrastructure and services to feed the industry and the extension of the industry itself into petroleum related products such as petrochemicals...
...This is partially because of competition from Europe's rebuilt refineries and also because of increasing energy demands in the United States...
...Economic factors alone cannot explain the political development of the working class or any of its parts...
...But things began to look up...
...Labor continued to broaden its demands and radicalize its stance, hoping to force the government to change...
...But, as Weekes himself admitted, corporations are "solely guided by the profit margin" and are not likely to accept low earnings in one area even though they are making millions in another...
...The OWTU was victorious in its 1960 strike against the oil companies...
...400 million invest...
...Between 1956 and 1962 employment in the oil sector had fallen by about 2,300 and the continued crisis promised to further exacerbate the situation...
...Thus, it is not surprising that the oil workers rapidly gained a sense of their power over the economic life of the country...
...And by the 1920's the Trinidad Workingman's Association, under the leadership of Andrew Cipriani, a local white who identified with the British Labor Party, was actively struggling for political and economic rights for Trinidad's working masses...
...transport and communications, 6 per cent...
...For this reason and because of their need for a relatively skilled work force, these industries have done little to absorb those workers thrown off by the decreasing importance and increasing mechanization of the agricultural sector...
...2 o20 The continuation of British colonial policy signified the maintenance of an extremely loose system for regulating and taxing foreign companies, which compared very poorly to the more rigid systems being implemented by most other oil-producing countries...
...Thus, the sector that remained in power was what has been commonly referred to as the Trinidad "middle class...
...Between 1950 and 1961 investment in manufacture represented only 7 per cent of total investment as opposed to the 40 per cent provided by petroleum, and in 1962 manufacture represented only 4.2 per cent of export sales as compared to oil's 85 per cent...
...Volume 10 code of Federal regulations section 211.1 et seq., and for a general description see volume 39, federal registration, 39740 (November 11, 1974), as cited in Krueger, Robert, The United States and International Oil, Praeger Publishers,, 1975...
...s 9 This strategy based itself on capital accumulation and investment in the most productive sectors of the economy...
...purchased the Antilles 440 diesel fuel and .1967 tion facilities...
...4 s In 1969 the top blew off the pot with the "worst labor crisis since the ISA became law in 1965...
...Trinidad lies approximately 20 miles off the northern coast of Venezuela...
...By the early 1970's the former preoccupation with unemployment became almost entirely absent from government rhetoric...
...Not only was Trinidad's oil production subject to the fluctuations of the world market, but its refining operations had remained competitive due to their relative low cost...
...MAJOR PRODUCTS NO...
...1917 Royal Dutch NA Residual fuel oil, 13,800 125,000 b/d desulfurizaAntilles Shell Group 460 middle distillate .1967 tion facilities...
...Yet once in power, the PNM's nationalist ambitions floundered...
...The W.R...
...Approx...
...196 2. I I. Texaco-Trinidad News, January, 1960...
...Previously, Trinidad-Tobago had been considered important primarily as a producer of crude oil...
...The oil field workers, with their militant tradition and their high level of organization, were by no means disposed toward accomodating themselves to the conditions of capitalist accumulation in the name of national unity and economic "development...
...Texaco has projected its...
...petrochem...
...White, 2% (1960 estimates...
...Unpublished Ph.D...
...Throughout the 1960's and 1970's, class conflict in the oil industry transcended both the crisis in oil production and the employment issue to question the entire structure of the industry itself...
...In other words, the aim of the NPC was to accrue profits from the companies for the government, to invest these monies to provide greater employment, and to create a context in which nationals could gain "a direct knowledge of the workings of the industry, of great value in negotiations with foreign-owned companies...
...in 1974...
...The Government's New Strategy for Development At the same time that labor was giving up on the government, the government was formulating plans that would attempt to completely ignore the needs of labor...
...What is more, they have continued on the path of automation, creating a reserve army of labor among the industrial work force whose training, expectations and political consciousness contribute to an increasingly volatile situation...
...By the 1960's, as a result of Texaco's 1959 acquisition of the Paragon Oil Company which for the first time allowed the company to engage directly in the fuel oil business in the large East Coast market, Texaco Trinidad's products began to redirect toward the U.S...
...Economic diversification, dire problems of unemployment, the lack of social services and even the creation of a "nationally-oriented private sector" would have to wait until the economy was sufficiently wealthy to afford them...
...According to a study commissioned by the Trinidad government, the Caribbean area was becoming an increasingly important link between the company's crude oil supplies and product outlets...
...On February 18, 1975 the United Labour Front (ULF) was formed, combining the major trade unions-oil workers, sugar workers, transport and industrial workers-a total of over 40,000 workers...
...increasingly the government has participated in the oil sector...
...While a blow by blow description is not possible here, we will highlight the important developments in the Trinidad-Tobago oil industry from 1962 to the present...
...The Post-War Political Economy of Trinidad and Tobago-I," in Norman Girvan and Owen Jefferson (editors), Readings in the Political Economy of the Caribbean (Kingston: New World Group, Ltd, 1971), 131...
...In 1967 the OWTU had proposed that the Williams' government acquire the assets of the British Petroleum Company and on the basis of this acquisition create a National Petroleum Company (NPC...
...Since the basis of this activity was government revenues, largely based on revenues from the oil industry, the government needed to rationalize the industry's legal and tax structure to ensure itself a reasonable part of the take...
...While the value-added through refining is considerable, Texaco Trinidad's revenues are not based on this differential but on a refining fee...
...Our inspiration is the OPEC countries...
...These mostly white officials, however, represented a class that was declining in importance due to the decreasing centrality of agriculture in the island economy...
...9. Trinidad Guardian...
...Point Fortin, T&T Govt...
...The world's largest rexformer (a facility for increasing the octane level of gasoline) had been installed...
...In 1956, trends within the industry, the unions and the society as a whole culminated in three events which provided an impulse for the accelerated political and organizational development of the OWTU...
...The New Year's Message also included a resolution passed by the union's general council to condemn the Williams regime for refusing to allow the refueling of Cuban planes bound for Angola and to send a telegram of revolutionary support from the OWTU to the President of the People's Republic of Angola...
...Under Cipriani, The Trinidad Workingman's Association, was transformed into the Trinidad Labor Party, and while Cipriani's politics were essentially reformist and the leadership of the Labor Party basically petit bourgeois, he "gave the working masses an instrument by which they could be politicised and develop their class consciousness...
...The expansion of refining capacity to make aviation fuel for both the Royal Air Force and the U.S...
...By trading sources of crude for markets through equity agreements and sales contracts, these companies divided among themselves world oil production, refining and marketing...
...An examination of what these promises did and did not include, the assumptions that underlie them and the company's disposition toward complying with them will provide a framework for understanding how Texaco (and similar companies) operate...
...It could be argued that a refinery is17 generally beneficial in that it creates many jobs...
...BP came to Trinidad-Tobago to pump oil...
...Rather, it was a "subsidiary" of the NPC, although for the forseeable future it would constitute the company's only activity...
...So we will briefly sketch some of the broad outlines of "the big picture" in which to situate the more detailed investigation of the current period...
...and services, 20 per cent...
...42 The industry had emerged from the slump of the early 1960's and in 1968 oil production was at an all time high...
...To facilitate our examination of this extremely complex subject, we have divided our study into two parts...
...petro- acity (1974) chemical feedstks...
...52 The real reason, however, was that Tesoro had friends in high places...
...in 1956...
...By this act the professional and middle-class leadership completely abandoned the working class mass of the nationalist movement...
...Annual Report...
...Form 10-K of Commonwealth Oil Refining Company, Inc...
...The Oilfields Workers' Trade Union was one of fourteeen trade unions to register in 1937...
...In other words, slightly more than a year after its formation, the United Labor Front has become the official opposition party in Trinidad-Tobago...
...This was the period of great oil discoveries in the United States and Russia and the beginnings of conversion from coal to petroleum in the industrialized countries...
...Instead, it is characterized by "a strenuous need to accomodate," a need based historically on middle-class accomodation to the British colonial administration and to foreign business interests today...
...Beneath these gestures remained a basic commitment to the capitalist structuring of the economy and a vision of the oil industry as dependent for its survival on the multinational petroleum companies...
...could only have short-term benefits to the nation at the risk of slowing down future growth in the industry (and could be) a significant negative factor in investment decisions...
...see Annual Report and S.E.C...
...Rapidly, military supplies were sent from Venezuela and the United States and the U.S...
...But petroleum refining is already one of the most capital intensive of industries and is becoming even more so...
...Thus Continental's financing of Tesoro, if it was not explicitly endorsed by Texaco, at least did not run contrary to Texaco's interests...
...The conflict between Butler and the OWTU leadership represented by Rojas went deeper than the question of who was to represent the oil workers...
...June 1975, pg...
...It claimed it could not afford wage increases and attempted to lay off 300 workers...
...see Act no...
...In 1972 the Industrial Relations Act replaced the Industrial Stabilization Act of 1965...
...As the above quote demonstrates, the oil field workers, organized within the OWTU, view their role as extending beyond the limits of the industry itself, beyond purely economic issues and beyond the national boundaries of Trinidad-Tobago...
...6 8 Elections were held on September 13, 1976...
...The new law was particularly geared toward preventing the unification of the labor force in radical unions such as the OWTU...
...and when the new legislation emerged in 1969, it was largely symbolic...
...The Texas Company, in its negotiations with the British government for the purchase of TOC, made a series of commitments that were presumably to benefit TrinidadTobago...
...2 * Texaco's income for 1975 was over $88 million (this, after deducting almost $58 million for the nationalization of its properties in Venezuela and over $23 million for "possible losses in Angola...
...Trinidad Guardian, April 10, 1969...
...population: 1.2 million (1975...
...Thus, Trinidad-Tobago was being molded as a refining station for imported oil...
...s Instead, George Weekes, OWTU head, took issue with BP's claims, insisting that the company was one of the integrated multinational oil giants, was in no danger of losing its competitive edge in the world oil market and was, in fact, rapidly increasing its overall profit margins...
...TOC's assets included producing properties, an 80,000 barrel per day refinery and 50 per cent interest in Regent Oil Company, the third largest petroleum marketing company in the United Kingdom...
...BIG OIL COMES TO TRINIDAD The real beginning of Trinidad-Tobago's oil history originated in 1907 with the discovery of oil in commercial quantities...
...In turn the government, attempting cooptation, appointed George Weekes, among others, to the board of the NPC, apparently without notifying him...
...Trinidad Guardian, May 25, 1969...
...While both production and refining have expanded, the number of workers directly employed by the industry has decreased...
...s Texaco's second commitment to the British protectors of Trinidad's welfare was to run its Trinidad refinery at full capacity and not to run less than 70,000 bpd...
...With the aid of loans from the British and U.S...
...Not only were the different forces within the oil industry beginning to show their true colors, but both the industry and the economy as a whole were beginning to manifest their inherent weaknesses...
...In Brazil, for example, the investment of industrial capital has been enormous, yet almost half the population can be classified as peasants...
...Ibid., 12...
...That means that for racial and historical reasons they are today excluded from those circles which are in control of big industry, commerce and finance...
...And the political and organizational development of the Oilfields Workers' Trade Union was by no means an isolated phenomenon...
...The PNM's nationalist attacks on foreign domination were not limited to the British...
...expenditures for this calendar year at more than US $600 million...
...Carrington, "Industrialization in Trinidad and Tobago Since 1950," in Girvan and Jefferson, Readings in the Political Economy, 144...
...Even the most enthusiastic proponents of the government's economic development plan were becoming discouraged with its ability to integrate the economy and generate employment...
...Ibid...
...The government was to have 50.1 per cent ownership of the new company, Tesoro 49.9 per cent, and each was to appoint 4 directors to the company's board with a chairman appointed by the government and ratified by Tesoro...
...Five-year Plan, 155...
...A national and nationally-oriented private sector" had to be created and as this sector did not already exist, the State would have to create it...
...The rank and file, insisting on greater gains, asserted itself and called a strike...
...Here again, the company, through a world-wide juggling of supply and demand, decides whether Trinidad-Tobago will produce cheap residual fuel oils (58 per cent of the country's output between 1967 and 1971) or higher priced products such as gasoline (14 per cent...
...A state of emergency was declared and the armed forces were sent to crush the sugar workers...
...CLR James describes this grouping in his Party Politics in the West Indies, written at the time of Trinidad-Tobago's independence and after six years of the PNM experiment: Our West Indian middle classes are for the most part coloured people of some education in a formerly slave society...
...It must be understood that the PNM was not seeking to challenge foreign capital by replacing it with State or national capital...
...1975 pg 96...
...Williams called for outside help...
...26 Yet this modern labor force faced archaic working conditions in the form of low wages, racist practices at the hands of white expatriates and harsh disciplinary procedures...
...2? Under Adrian Cola Rienzi, the OWTU won recognition from the oil companies' Petroleum Association, forced the owners to submit to collective bargaining and gained increases in wages...
...Thus in February of 1963, when BP's contract with the OWTU came up for negotiation, the company pleaded poverty...
...Yabucoa, Puerto 1968 Sun Oil Co...
...It stated that a union in one essential industry could not represent workers in another of these industries if a previously recognized (by the government, not necessarily the workers) union already existed: in other words, in those "essential industries"-oil, electricity, port operators, and sugar-where workers had tried to cast off sell-out union leadership and replace it with OWTU representation...
...August 1, 1956...
...5. Michael Tanzer, The Political Economy of International Oil and the Underdeveloped Countries (Boston: Beacon Press), 1969...
...16 Speaking out against the corruption and racism of the British colonialists and their local accomplices and calling for economic and political reform, the PNM "formed an amalgam of the middle class, the working class and all other social groupings between those two in an apparent classless movement...
...The end of the Second World War signaled the decline of European imperialist domination and the rising hegemony of U.S...
...The OWTU refused to accept BP's statement that "unions and society at large now recognize that the employer who exports his product to the world market must be allowed to keep his costs competitive even at the expense of retrenchment...
...The first was the primacy of the oil industry which since its emergence at the beginning of the century, came to represent millions of dollars in direct investment, particularly in refining...
...The Pioneer Industries plan for economic development, while it had diversified the economy to some extent, had not come close to either solving the country's unemployment problems or lessening the country's dependence on oil...
...Discontent among the unemployed was expressing itself in27 the development of loosely-knit organizations which incorporated the ideology of Black Power...
...Caribbean Dialogue, 8. 66...
...and new petroleum products and markets are influencing the island's industry...
...This strategy for development was based on oil money and the 1970's brought the government an unexpected boom...
...World oil prices had been dropping steadily since 1958 and production, which had received a boost from the 1956 Suez crisis, began to decline after 1959...
...In those years, refinery runs in the company's U.S...
...What remained to be done was to manage the company in a way palatable to the multinationals and non-antagonistic to the union...
...1974...
...The OWTU, to be disciplined in order to achieve these ends, was to be induced into "responsible" trade unionism...
...Acting under the pretext that the OWTU, "a recalcitrant minority of communist persuasion playing on working class discontent" was conspiring to "create chaos in the country," the PNM, under the cover of a state of emergency, steamrollered a bill that severely limited the right to strike...
...In any case, by the early 1960's, the contradictions inherent in the total dependency of Trinidad-Tobago's oil industry on foreign multinationals were becoming increasingly apparent...
...For example, in 1969 the Trinidad Guardian labeled the industrialization program a failure...
...It was on the basis of this "amalgam" that the PNM was swept into power in 1956...
...At the same time, advances in the transport of oil made Trinidad easily adaptable to a change in sources of crude from Venezuela to cheaper sources in the Middle East...
...24 Largely due to the centrality of the petroleum industry, the kind of capital that has been attracted to Trinidad has been characterized by a minimal need for labor...
...Harvey, Rise and Fall, 23...
...for more details on the "Hawksbill Creek Act" and the development of Freeport see: Business Week, August 1, 1970 p. 54, 55...
...The Multinational Corporation, 354...
...Trinidad-Tobago now exports large amounts of petroleum, both crude and partially refined, to its Caribbean neighbors-$25.1 million in 1975 to Jamaica alone...
...Fifty-four per cent of this income was attributable to its U.S...
...Neither were these lessons lost on the government and the multinational corporations operating in Trinidad...
...The strategy was twinedged-a class alliance and racial politics...
...diana, May 1932...
...oil revenues: $1,184 million in 1975 (70% of total government revenue...
...Finally, the Report suggested that the OWTU participate in the retrenchment of its membership: The union's realization that long term maximum employment will depend on short-term automation and work rationalization in the industry as an inducement to maximum investment in Trinidad and Tobago is essential...
...21 In the area of petrochemicals, the evolution of government policy demonstrated the contradictions inherent in the entire industrialization by invitation scheme...
...s15 This shift from the predominance of crude production to that of refining was primarily initiated by a few British oil companies, the most important of which were Shell Trinidad and the Trinidad Oil Company (formerly Trinidad Leaseholds Ltd...
...The future for the industry looked bleak...
...According to Williams, the plan (Operation Bootstrap) that inspired Trinidad's Aid to Pioneer Industries "is now a laughing stock even in Puerto Rico...
...Of equal importance to the development of this sector of the working class, however, was the factor of its centrality to this process...
...While company officials tend to be immodest, then Chairman of the Board A.C...
...Texaco Trinidad was not only ideal in 1956, it moved with the times.18 This summary of the early development of Texaco Trinidad must be seen as more than a demonstration of the company's business acumen...
...It was thus on the basis of not only Trinidad's "strategic location" but also on the cooperative attitude of Trinidad's colonial government that Texaco decided to create a "microcosm of the oil industry" on the island, to use the company's words...
...see O'Neill, Edward A., Rape of the American Virgins, Praeger Publishers, 1972...
...For the ULF, the road ahead is clearly marked...
...Moreover, the acquisition of TOC was not the first step in the company's plans for absorption of the Trinidad oil industry...
...Oil of Intillates...
...Between 1946 and 1951, production of petroleum rose by less than a million barrels, while crude imports for refining rose from under 3 million to almost 16 million and the export of refined products rose from approximately 20 to 32.5 million barrels...
...Government of Trinidad and Tobago, Third Five- Year Plan 1969-1973, Trinidad and Tobago: Government Printing Office, 1970, 2. 44...
...Superprods., lubricants port: 825,000 b/d capand gasoline...
...Caribbean Dialogue, 19...
...The Trinidad Manufacturers Association, which also boasts a board member, has echoed this warning...
...Ryan, "Restructuring the Trinidad Economy," 200...
...At the same time the OWTU extended its membership to incorporate workers in other industries such as steel and the OWTU leadership played an important role in the organizing of the All Trinidad Sugar Workers to represent the agricultural work force...
...The Texaco News, a company public relations magazine, boasts of cutting laboi costs in Trinidad-Tobago by increasing use of sophisticated computer technology in refining and the facts bear this out...
...exchange rate: U.S...
...When contract negotiations came up between the OWTU and Texaco, Apex and Shell in 1960, the industry was in a stage of expansion...
...United Labour Front, Policy and Programme of the ULF, (Trinidad), 1975...
...In refining, not only did transfer pricing preclude the possibility of refining generating any revenues for the government, as stated above, but foreign companies were also permitted to deduct socalled losses on refinery runs from profits on crude Droduction...
...The CPTU threatened to bring an increasing number of unions into the radical fold...
...They had refused the company's wage offers and countered its lay-off plans with the following threat: "If BP or Shell retrench any more workers, the whole industry will go down because job security is the life and death of a worker...
...In the years 1973 and 1974, total foreign investment in Trinidad-Tobago doubled, topping the one billion mark...
...This market was no small prize in the multinationals' postwar division of the spoils, especially because the reconstruction and expansion of European industry necessitated ample supplies of energy that its own refining capacity could not provide...
...Finally, and of greatest importance, was the rise of new leadership with a strong commitment to union democracy within the OWTU...
...5. Central Intelligence Handbook "Foreign Refinery Exporting Centers", June, 1975...
...Texaco Comes to Trinidad In August, 1956 Albert Gomes, Trinidad-Tobago's Minister of Labor, Industry and Commerce, arrived home from Britain to a hero's welcome...
...At the urging of the oil companies, backed up by promised loans to the government, 9 the PNM opted for the institutionalization of an expanded state role in disciplining the labor force...
...85 Residual fuel, dis- NA Rico 85 tillate fuel oils, gasoline Pointe-a-Pierre, Texaco, Inc...
...Forbes, September 1, 1975...
...Curacao, Neth...
...While foreign multinationals cornered the largest part of the take, a substantial amount of money ended up in the hands of the Trinidad-Tobago government...
...But as Trinidad's Gomes understood, capital expansion is not based on memories of past glories...
...By the early 1960's, rapidly decreasing employment in the industry had already tried their patience...
...The union has struggled for democratic unionism, advocated workers' control over the industry, working class control over the state apparatus, and understood the importance of proletarian internationalism...
...Caribbean Dialogue, 1. 68...
...Our goals in Trinidad, by contrast, are the highest level of technological development based on hydrocarbons, leading to petrochemicals and steel...
...In addition to BP's regular employees, the union convinced household workers in the BP housing complex to stay off their jobs, and OWTU members employed by Shell refused to handle goods such as gasoline for BP trucks...
...While the union saw a Company Pressure In 1965, the following statement by Texaco's Chairman of the Board, who was on his third visit to Trinidad, appeared in a full page paid ad in the Trinidad Guardian: We have carefully planned our producing capabilities and refining capacity over the world to put us in a flexible position...
...In the oil sector as well, the PNM government continued to serve the interests of foreign capital by carrying on the policies of the British, colonial government...
...The Rest of the Oil Industry Although Texaco has made the greatest impact on Trinidad-Tobago, other factors are at play as well: other major oil companies were on the scene...
...When a large portion of the military rebelled...
...Texaco also had an indirect equity interest in the Regent Oil Company, the largest equity owner of which was the Trinidad Oil Company (TOC...
...Unrest in the country was not, however, limited to labor...
...The union, however, was in no mood to settle the question amicably, especially since Texaco, in process of expanding refining operations, had just agreed to a wage increase totaling 20 per cent over three years and a reduction in the work week...
...petro os...
...Parliament voted on all important Trinidad affairs and the sale was harshly criticized by some as "selling out the Empire to the Americans...
...In 1970 this discontent exploded into a massive uprising...
...The sugar industry was shut down and workers from sugar, oil and other industries joined with the Trinidad, 197028 unemployed to call for Williams' resignation...
...Long's statement that the Trinidad refinery was "one of the world's most efficient" was not an overstatement...
...In the particular case of Texaco's refining operations, both the overall capacity and the number of operations the facility is equipped for have mushroomed...
...Five-year Plan, 171-172...
...in facilities...
...The early history of the OWTU was not, however, without its contradictions...
...Selwyn Ryan, "Restructuring the Trinidad Economy," in Girvan and Jefferson, Ibid., 189...
...In 1910, Winston Churchill, First Lord of the Admiralty, signaled the conversion of the British Navy from coal to oil...
...fac., Texaco purchased 80,000 Trinidad-Tobago 361 oline...
...October 1973, pg...
...Mixed, 16...
...Although we do not pretend to explain all the reasons of how and why this union was able to transform itself, it is clear that this political consciousness and militance finds its roots in the development of the labor force in the oil industry and the working class as a whole...
...Latin America, October 25...
...Between 1963 and 1968, employment declined from 17,800 to 13.500...
...34 They also rejected the company's plea to workers still on the job: Forget about your unemployed brothers and "sacrifice the few for the benefit of the many" to join with BP in fighting the "common enemy"-the company's competitors...
...But it was conflict between the OWTU and the petroleum multinationals that finally exposed the contradictions between the OWTU leadership and the rank and file...
...While there were fundaT.U.B...
...By 1974 its Trinidad-Tobago venture was the major source of $55 million in profits with which Tesoro would integrate its international operations, diversify its sources of crude, acquire marketing outlets and, in 1975, purchase 37 per cent of Puerto Rico's massive CORCO refinery (see first article...
...Since 1950 the available labor force had grown by almost 100,000 while the $257.8 million invested by Pioneer Industries had provided less than 7,000 jobs...
...The development of the productive forces in TrinidadTobago was accompanied by the proletarianization and urbanization of the labor force...
...Where will Texaco spend this sum of money...
...Asian, 37...
...His parents were school teachers and strong trade unionists...
...Farrell, The Multinational Corporation, 349...
...Seventy-five per cent of the crude that flows through Texaco's Trinidad refinery is imported from Texaco subsidiaries at prices pre-determined by the company...
...In 1976 Eric Williams retrospectively characterized the coming to power of the PNM as "coinciding with the two most promising signs of [Trinidad-Tobago's] greater development," one of which was the arrival of Texaco...
...2) That to defeat this unholy alliance, the working class must seek not only honest, democratic and militant trade union organization but also political power...
...This had tremendous significance both for labor and the government...
...This plan, modeled after the works of two noted exponents of "industrialization by invitation," Arthur Lewis and Teodor Moscoso, created the legal mechanisms for an incentive program designed to attract foreign investment in industry...
...The other oil companies decisively influencing TrinidadTobago have been British Petroleum (BP), Shell International and Amoco...
...Explosion in the Seventies By the early 1970's, tensions born in the industry ended this uneasy balance...
...commerce, 13 per cent...
...While this was a phenomenon that occured throughout Latin America, its pervasiveness within Trinidad society was particularly notable due to a number of factors...
...1=TT $2.40...
...One of the aims of the party was the renegotiation of an American-British agreement that allowed the United States to maintain a military base on the island...
...Whether producing residual fuel oils or complex chemicals, the industry has a minimal need for labor...
...This was a direct slap in the face to the OWTU...
...THE OIL WORKERS In December of 1975, the oilfields workers' union leadership delivered a "Message for a New Year of Historic Decision...
...It was to become a partner of capital in resolving its problems of capital accumulation...
...In short, it was the oil industry that held up the entire Trinidad economy and it was the oil field workers who held up the oil industry...
...capital over the capitalist world...
...1975 facilities...
...Traditional markets for the country's refined products in Europe and the Caribbean were becoming self-sufficient in refinery capacity, Moreover, it was questioned whether the import quotas would remain in effect that allowed Texaco and others to market residual fuel oil, Trinidad-Tobago's major export product, in the United States...
...We will examine the question of employment in the oil industry, the attempts by the multinationals and the government to contain labor militance, and the attempts to stabilize the industry through state intervention and the creation of a national oil company...
...But this carrot and stick strategy was not successful and as the 1960's progressed, the government faced increasing challenges from organized labor.25 Government Panic and Repression The strike against BP was by no means the only conflict to erupt during the early 1960's...
...Government officials and Trinidad notables, including those who saw fit to mark the occasion by dressing up as Texas cowboys, turned out to greet him...
...The Commission on Enquiry's Report first discussed the strengths and weaknesses of Trinidad's oil industry and then warned that: A national labour policy based on holding to former employment levels...
...But the larger marketing trend has been in favor of exporting to the United States...
...bottom 20% of the population received 2.2% population composition: Black, 43...
...Report of the Commission of Enquiry into the Oil Industry of Trinidad and Tobago, 1963-64 (Trinidad: Government Printing Office), 1965...
...6. Interview with oil economist, New York City, June 1976...
...By 1964 crude production was relatively stagnant, and by the late sixties production actually declined...
...September 7, 1975...
...During the war Trinidad-Tobago's production doubled from one million to two million barrels per year and the island gained the privilege of becoming the largest source of "purely British oil...
...mining, manufacturing and quarrying, 20 per cent...
...construction and services38...
...Since Trinidad-Tobago is located just off the coast of Venezuela, the largest foreign producer of oil for the U.S...
...State intervention in the economy was to take the form of massive infrastructure projects such as an export-oriented industrial park and deep water port at Point Lisas...
...In the case of Trinidad-Tobago, the basis of incorporation into the sphere of U.S...
...By 1963, however, the tide had already begun to turn...
...the role of natural gas has been changing...
...mining, manufacturing, petroleum-20...
...Both the creation of the union and its subsequent transformations corresponded to the historical development of political consciousness and corresponding forms of organization within the class as a whole...
...While the ability of multinational corporations to appoint foreign governments, bankrupt foreign economies and bring nations to war is well documented, we turn now to some of the more subtle forms of manipulation and deception practiced by Texaco in Trinidad-Tobago...
...590 distillate fuel oil, 1972 tion plant...
...While Texaco itself was new to Trinidad-Tobago in 1956, in other forms it had been lurking around for a good while...
...Due to the loose-knit nature of the popular uprising, the Williams government was able to forcefully put down the uprising...
...Also of great importance was the fact that throughout this period the OWTU held fast to the industrial character of the union...
...The Trinidad Chamber of Commerce, whose director, in 1967, was elected a vice-president and director of the company, has come out repeatedly against nationalization of the oil companies, insisting that the government could not handle the complexities of the oil industry...
...Wall Street Journal, December 15, 197 1. 19...
...Money was certainly not the answer...
...plants, off- b/d refinery from Trinshore supertanker termin...
...By 1970, a new oil discovery by Amoco had sent half a dozen consortia-composed of U.S...
...He had been permitted by the British to STATISTICS size: 1,979 mi...
...2. Texas Company...
...Finally, it could be assumed that an operation as massive as Texaco's would at least be a source of government revenues through taxation...
...They are almost as much excluded from large-scale agriculture...
...All, however, was not well...
...After emancipation, a large proportion of Africans left the plantations to work small plots in the interior or to seek employment in the towns...
...Ibid...
...SO In effect, it had turned over the NPC (and one-third of the country's total oil production) to a foreign company, and a company that had very little to recommend it...
...Quite naturally, the people of Trinidad, just as the people in some other areas where we operate, would be interested in knowing if some of this money will be invested in their home area...
...Implicit in this was an admission that foreign capital had not succeeded in industrializing the country...
...Grace, Mitsubishi...
...The PNM's accomodation to the interests of foreign capital primarily took the form of perpetuating the policies originally laid out by the British...
...4 The difference between 1969 and 1965 was the expanding role and the changing nature of the government's involvement in the economy...
...In addition, assertions that significant oil refining operations lead to the expansion of employment through the creation of related manufacturing activities is equally misleading...
...The political vehicle of this sector was the People's National Movement (PNM) led by Eric Williams, a noted Caribbean scholar...
...Although it might have been expected that the creation of the NPC...
...In other words, if the Texas Company wanted to move in on the decaying British empire, there was little that British dismay could do about it...
...140,000 b/d refinery other middle dis- from Std...
...ss Moreover, the company received a 100 per cent tax exemption...
...High wages and the prevention of layoffs could thus endanger the entire industry, not to mention the effects of prolonged strikes on the government's touted investment climate...
...63 In 1976, it was reported that the government was planning to spend TTS800 million over the next 6 years on petroleum-based and energy-related products and infrastructure...
...22 While the usefulness of these figures is limited by the use of bourgeois economic categories, they do tell us that Trinidad is by nc means a backwater in the Caribbean where the population maintains itself through subsistence farming and tourism...
...7. Trevor Farrell, The Multinational Corporations, the Petroleum Industry and Economic Underdevelopment in Trinidad and Tobago...
...1 8. Ibid...
...Thus the funds that have not been spent have been accumulated in a special petroleum development fund...
...Trinidad Guardlan, April 11, 1969...
...3 And in the words of the company itself, "This refinery [in Trinidad-Tobago] which in capacity is the second largest owned by the company or its subsidiaries, is strategically located to process Texaco's foreign crude oil and to supply markets in the Caribbean, South and Central America and West Africa as well as the United Kingdom and other parts of Europe...
...While an editorial in the Trinidad Guardian assumed that Tesoro was putting up $20 million in cash, 14 the company put up only $50,000 and guaranteed only $7.5 million of the $25 million financing subsequently obtained by the new company...
...Edwin Carrington...
...Moreover, since Trinidad-Tobago was a British colony, it offered automatic access to the United Kingdom markets with the accompanying competitive advantage of "sterling oil" over "dollar oil...
...dissertation, Cornell University, 1974, 342...
...At the same time, the government tried to straddle the fence, making symbolic concessions to labor and coming up with new development schemes that paid lip service to the problem of falling employment...
...Firstly, as previously mentioned, Trinidad-Tobago's crude is considered high-cost (although the off-shore deposits are considerably cheaper to recover than on-shore deposits) and until recently prices have not been high enough for a company with world-wide operations (including a 30 per cent equity interest in the Arabian American Oil Company-Aramco) to want to go all out in Trinidad-Tobago...
...The acquisition of this last asset not only brought Texaco's interest in Regent to 75 per cent, but through a complicated set of stock transfers increased the company's interest in McColl-Fronterac (which also had access to Commonwealth markets) to 65 per cent...
...NA Sold to Gov't by Shell Trinidad-Tobago 100 Oil Co...
...It was the oil sector which drew the bulk of foreign investment, which provided the revenues for infra-structure development and which provided the foreign exchange necessary for the importation of both capital and consumer goods...
...Annual Report, 1957...
...Like the plan for the National Petroleum Company, the overall scheme was to supplement and actually complement foreign capital...
...In 1968 there was an important new discovery of large crude deposits off Trinidad's southeast coast which in short order made land and marine production almost equal...
...Trinidad-Tobago remained attractive to BP for several years due to the productivity of the company's wells and to events on the international oil scene such as the formation of OPEC...
...And this boom was not considered temporary...
...Proven reserves were not expected to last out the 1970's and markets for Trinidad-Tobago's oil were not considered secure...
...The English-speaking Caribbean joined the rest of Latin America (and the world, for that matter) as yet another source of labor, natural resources and markets for U.S...
...While no one had ever heard of Tesoro in Trinidad (or anywhere else for that matter), the OWTU immediately rejected the idea that the National Petroleum Company in reality would be a joint-venture...
...location: Trinidad and Tobago are located at the far south-eastern tip of the Antilles chain of islands which sweep from the Gulf of Mexico and Florida in the northwest to the Atlantic coast of Venezuela in the southwest...
...And the man who replaced Rienzi, John Rojas, soon began to demonstrate the collaborationist tendencies of his predecessor, to engage in corrupt practices including the mishandling of union funds, and to pursue undemocratic union policies...
...4. Ahmad, Aijaz "Slipping on Oil", Raritan Caucus Press pg...
...struction Company...
...The rate of crude production had fallen both in 1961 and 1962 and BP's off-shore wells had had only limited success...
...The merger of the oil and sugar workers would have meant the unification of labor in the two most important sectors of the economy, those responsible for almost all of Trinidad's foreign exchange earnings...
...Amoco was ready for this new geiser and, in the first three years after the discovery, invested $115 million in Trinidad, an indication of how important the find was...
...These changes, in the form of a new constitution, adult suffrage, and the right to trade union organizations, provided the basis for yet a higher level of struggle...
...Between 1960 and 1964, 230 strikes mainly in the oil and sugar industries involved 74,574 workers and cost the corporations a loss of 803,899 person-days of work...
...idad Leaseholders Ltd...
...The PNM had put itself forth as a popular party representing all classes including the working class...
...United Labour Front, Policy and Programme...
...6. Stork, Joe "Middle East Oil and the Energy Crisis" Part One, MERIP, September, 1973, pg...
...36 In essence, the Commission's Report offered a formula for containing class struggle, the prerequisite for the survival of capitalist enterprises in a highly competitive industry...
...The duration of oil leases was shortened and it was stipulated that the company was only leasing the land with Trinidad-Tobago holding ownership rights...
...Ridgeway, James and Conner, Bettina, New Energy Beacon Press...
...And while the union was not able to stop lay-offs entirely, its systematic pressure on the companies and the government slowed down the process considerably...
...Experienced observers have noted that, "as a party with a socialist orientation and popular base among workers and farmers, [the ULF] represents the first organized challenge to the political and economic rule of the imperialists and local ruling class...
...According to Forbes magazine, Tesoro was able to make a deal with the Trinidad government because its owner was "smart" and "liked to take chances...
...From 1907 on, Trinidad-Tobago's fate as an oil producer ceased to be based on the ambitions of small time gamblers and figured in the calculations of companies and governments in their drive for control over this new and precious source of energy...
...operations and 46 per cent to operations abroad...
...1 In that same year, Texaco's sales in West Africa, one of Trinidad's principle markets, reached an all time high...
...They are not an ordinary middle class with Prime Minister Eric Williams strong personal ties with the upper class and mobility to rise among them and form social ties with them...
...But the oil industry itself was facing a period of stagnation...
...population growth rate: approximately 10% a year in the last 5 years, exports: petroleum and petroleum derivatives, sugar and other agricultural products...
...This conflict reflected the precarious nature of the industry and raised three fundamental issues: Trinidad-Tobago's marginal position as an oil producer, the question of employment in the industry, and the interrelationship between the two, i.e...
...In 1959 Texaco assured its stockholders that "additions to Texaco's refining facilities in Trinidad-Tobago more than made up for lost refining capacity [from expropriation] in Cuba...
...32 In 1962, the employment issue became a major catalyst for conflict...
...Employment in refining, however, has slightly decreased...
...BP sold all its assets in 1969, which will be discussed in depth as it is a significant part of this story...
...Instead of the 3 per cent raise Rojas would have accepted, the workers got increases of 22 per cent...
...As the economy developed with the discovery of oil, the beginnings of manufacture and the extension of commerce, the Trinidad working class came to be characterized by a large agricultural proletariat of Indian origin and a Black urban working class...
...69 Jane Rothenberg and Amy Wishner CARIBBEAN ISLAND REFINERIES AND ASSOCIATED FACILITIES (All Refineries Greater than 50,000 b/d Capacity) LOCATION YR...
...Yet the union's ability to mobilize against a large multinational corporation had an enduring effect on the labor force in the oil industry and on the society as a whole...
...RefinSocal) heating oils...
...Given the direction of Texaco's expansion, TOC was a perfect gem to add to the oil giant's collection...
...58 In short, not much had changed...
...The significance of this should not be underestimated...
...One hour before the deadline, workers stopped work and began marching around the refinery and singing...
...While the crisis facing the industry in the early 1960's can be attributed to the dependent nature of its development, it was the contradictions inherent in capitalist production itself that made the industry a powder keg...
...And by 1975 new development plans, based exclusively on the needs of capital, were in the making...
...Twenty-five per cent, however, of the facility's throughput is local crude...
...While numerous incentives were provided to encourage exploration, no standards were set for company activity...
...Texaco agreed to intensify oil exploration in TrinidadTobago and intensify it did...
...Caribbean Dialogue, 4. 25...
...By World War I, Trinidad oil was helping to fuel the war machine of British capitalism...
...Far from a threat to foreign capital, the NPC represented a means for solidifying the relationship between capital and the government by making the State a partner in the exploitation and disciplining of the labor force...
...Trinidad Guardian, May 1969...
...This power coupled with the fact that labor was most productive and most highly paid in the oil sector, could theoretically have been turned against the class as a whole through the creation of an aristocracy of labor...
...The company carried out a number of off-shore surveys, drilled many wells and until recently was responsible for almost half of Trinidad's oil production...
...58 and "The Mafia: Shadow of evil on an island in the sun" by Bill Davidson, Saturday Evening Post, April 22, 1967, pg...
...This says nothing, however, about the control Trinidad nationals have over the company or their access to information about the company's Trinidad operations...
...One as a policy maker and the other as a holding company, establishing wholly-owned or joint-venture subsidiaries...
...market at the time, it was decided that the island would be a convenient location to refine Venezuelan oil...
...But it is instructive to notice that, in spite of the massive investment in refining during the period 1964-66, for example, a whopping 79 per cent of total government revenues from the industry came from crude production alone...
...The government responded by declaring a State of Emergency...
...Three years later Shell International and Trinidad Leaseholds Ltd...
...One of these was the nature of investment on the island...
...At the close of the First World War, miserable economic conditions and an archaic political system provoked worker unrest and the creation of worker organizations...
...The Little Treasure from Texas In 1968 the Trinidad government announced its agreement with the Tesoro Petroleum Company of Texas to establish a jointly-owned company to own and manage BP's former assets...
...with tensions rising between BP and the OWTU...
...The labor force in the oil industry thus developed within the context of the rapid and pervasive proletarianization of the Trinidad working population by foreign industrial capital...
...the government announced its intention to expand its role in the economy by engaging in productive activities...
...o Within six years this had been accomplished...
...construction, 16 per cent...
...see New York Times, October 19, 1975...
...41 New Strategies For several years after the passage of the Industrial Stabilization Act, it appeared that the oil companies' pressure tactics and government repression had done their job...
...These workers knew what side the country's bread was buttered on and thus understood that their economic demands had an eminently political content...
...Williams, whose historical writings had "articulated so forcefully the sufferings and brutalities of the West Indian people under slavery and colonialism...
...Increasingly the government has entered other areas of the oil industry as well...
...andl by 1950 the political situation and the movement had by-passed him...
...In addition to taking over BP's and Shell's assets, they have formed a consortium with Texaco, Shell and Tesoro and have taken on a prominent role in distributing allocations for the new crude production areas...
...The policies described above, both in the oil industry and in the economy as a whole, were to remain in effect as long as the PNM rode the wave of popularity that brought it to power...
...40 The Industrial Stabilization Act of 1965 created an industrial court and submitted labor to compulsory and binding arbitration...
...Although it is a useful resource, many places like Trinidad-Tobago have vented it into the air since, from the companies' point of view, natural gas is too expensive and difficult to transport...
...The union had the power to shut the whole thing down...
...And the oil industry at the close of the Second World War was embarking on a process of consolidation both in terms of the division of the world among the seven largest companies and in terms of the internal integration of each of the oil giants...
...In the PNM's five-year plan submitted in 1968, the National Petroleum Company was described as having two distinct functions...
...The linking of economic and political struggle in Trinidad-Tobago dates back to the early formation of the country's working class...
...We came here," the ULF declared, "as29 two separate races, Africans and Indians .. but we ended up in Trinidad-Tobago as ONE CLASS-THE WORKING CLASS . . ." 66 The ULF decided to challenge Williams in the 1976 elections...
...Shortly after the BP takeover, the government announced its intention of working the holdings on a 50/50 basis with Texaco...
...In 1967, Shell and BP had first threatened the "retrenchment" of over 2,000 workers and then in 1968 did in fact discontinue drilling "on the grounds that all of their economically drillable prospects had been drilled up...
...SOURCES: U.S.Federal Energy Administration, Trends in Refinery Capacity and Utilization (Washington, D.C.: Gov...
...This, it appears the company has done...
...In order to understand the nature of the labor force in the oil sector and the evolution of the OWTU, we must examine it within the general context of the Trinidad working class' political and economic experience...
...The total assets of the company amounted to over S 17 billion, 47 per celit in the United States, 15 per cent in other Western Hemisphere countries and 38 per cent in the Eastern Hemisphere...
...29 By the middle 1950's when George Weekes became a rising figure within the OWTU, his life experience had incorporated not only the trade union and political traditions of the Trinidad working class, but also something of European socialist traditions...
...Farell, The Multinational Corporations, 346...
...First was the question of British Petroleum's involvement in Trinidad-Tobago, which was never of prime importance to BP...
...When Rojas heard that thousands of workers had left their23 jobs, he began to tremble...
...On the contrary, in Trinidad-Tobago the composition of the active labor force resembles that of advanced capitalist countries more closely than does the labor force of most dependent capitalist countries...
...They left little opening for the smaller independent companies and closed the options of the oil-producing countries...
...Trinidad became a British colony in 1802...
...Continental led a bank consortium that loaned it the S25 million needed to finance the venture...
...64 To make these investments in heavily capitalized industries, the government clearly has to create a solid capital base...
...60 The real big money, however, was to come in 1973 when the so-called "oil crisis" sent prices skyrocketing and companies off around the world in search of new sources of crude...
...One may well wonder which of these two things the company was promising...
...The government bought out Shell's Trinidad refinery in 1974 and in 1975, negotiations were in progress with Texaco for the acquisition of some of Texaco's marketing and related services...
...But if work stopped in electricity, all fall down...
...it only clarified the differences between labor and the government...
...The original beneficiaries of these innovations within the colony were the representatives of Trinidad-Tobago's white19 planter and commercial bourgeoisie, who maintained their influence through complete accomodation to British colonial rule...
...After a lull in exploration due to the Depression, the pumps were primed once again to provide fuel for the World War II effort...
...In addition, the purchase provided the Texas Company with marketing outlets in Trinidad-Tobago and the Lesser Antilles and increased its marketing outlets in the Dominican Republic, Jamaica and Puerto Rico...
Vol. 10 • October 1976 • No. 8
