Waldo Nunez broke colour bar in the oilfields
Waldo Nunez, the father of beleaguered Finance Minister Karen Nunez-Tesheira, was one of the country’s industrial relations pioneers.
Waldo, who passed away at the age of 94, also broke the colour barrier at the exclusive Clifton Hill residential enclave in Point Fortin when he was personnel manager at Shell Trinidad Ltd 50 years ago.
Only white expatriates lived in the stylish bungalows in Clifton Hill and Nunez and I. F. Wilson, father of Selby Wilson, who, coincidentally, was Finance Minister in the National Alliance For Reconstruction (NAR) administration, were the only non-whites to live in this manicured suburb.
Karen and her other siblings lived a life of privilege – a huge house, sprawling grounds, a gardener and housekeeper, piped cooking gas, milk delivered to the house and so on.
Clifton Hill was heavily policed by Shell security personnel and people who were non-residents risked being arrested if found in the area.
Nunez built a reputation as a tough industrial relations professional who had to negotiate with the no-nonsense Oilfield Workers Trade Union, meeting the likes of John Rojas and George Weekes around the bargaining table.
He oversaw retrenchment in the company in the 1960s and was there when the Eric Williams administration bought the company for a song – a mere $93.6 million in 1974 which many people at the time felt was too much money “for a shell of a company”.
In those days, $93 million looked like $93 billion!
Nunez got a golden handshake of over $250,000, a parting gift that would be considered a pittance nowadays, but was a sum of money that probably could easily buy 10 houses in that era .
He became a much sought after consultant and worked for many years after retiring.
A man small in stature, with twinkling eyes, he knew every trick in the industrial relations book – one which he probably wrote.
Only last August, his wife, Una Magdalena, died.
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[...] a spirited 40-minute statement, which the death of her father Waldo Nunez prevented her from delivering one week ago, Karen Nunez-Tesheira gave a blow-by-blow account of the [...]