Rad­hi­ca Sookraj

Head of the Joint Trade Union Move­ment (JTUM) An­cel Ro­get is warn­ing Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley to get rid of er­rant min­is­ters be­fore his Gov­ern­ment col­laps­es.

Speak­ing at May Day cel­e­bra­tions at Har­ris Prom­e­nade in San Fer­nan­do yes­ter­day, Ro­get said the labour move­ment will do its own mid-year re­view on gov­ern­ment's poli­cies when T&T cel­e­brates Labour Day on June 19. Labour lead­ers will al­so ex­pose the ar­ro­gance of some min­is­ters who are against the work­ing class, Ro­get added.

More than 14 trade unions in­clud­ing the Oil­fields Work­ers' Trade Union, T&T Uni­fied Teach­ers As­so­ci­a­tion, Pub­lic Ser­vice As­so­ci­a­tion, Con­tracts and Gen­er­al Work­ers' Union, Amal­ga­mat­ed Work­ers Union, Farm­ers Union, Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Work­ers Union and Steel Work­ers Union at­tend­ed the ral­ly, which was seen as the biggest pub­lic May Day march in over a decade.

Promis­ing that the labour move­ment will make its con­tri­bu­tions to the Na­tion­al Tri­par­tite Ad­vi­so­ry Coun­cil (NTAC), Ro­get warned that labour lead­ers will not tol­er­ate dis­re­spect from gov­ern­ment min­is­ters.

"Bal­anc­ing your book Mr Min­is­ter of Fi­nance is the be­gin­ning. If you are not pre­pared to meet with us and con­sult then pre­pare your­self for the great­est in­dus­tri­al re­la­tion­al tsuna­mi that will come your way," Ro­get said.

He added: "Every min­is­ter should call in every union and see what could be done about this eco­nom­ic tsuna­mi that is fac­ing us."

He al­so threw a word of cau­tion to At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Faris Al-Rawi who ad­mit­ted to giv­ing le­gal ad­vice to Arcelor­Mit­tal be­fore he as­sumed his po­lit­i­cal post.

"I want to know what is the rea­son you are afraid, or re­luc­tant or hes­i­tant to pass retroac­tive leg­is­la­tion. Is it be­cause a cer­tain high fly­er who is a lawyer rep­re­sent­ed Arcelor­Mit­tal's in­ter­ests? Do not play that you are sup­port­ing us by day and in the dark­ness of night you are sup­port­ing an­oth­er," Ro­get said.

Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Work­ers' Union pres­i­dent, Joseph Re­my, who al­so spoke, said the bur­den of ad­just­ment should not fall on the backs of work­ers. "Every day work­ers are be­ing placed on the bread­line. The bur­den of ad­just­ment has to be shared eq­ui­tably," Re­my said. He al­so called on Gov­ern­ment to lend sup­port to lo­cal farm­ers who can as­sist in re­duc­ing the food im­port bill.

Natuc:

"All war will break loose if the Gov­ern­ment brings in the In­ter­na­tion­al Mon­e­tary Fund in­to T&T," Na­tion­al Trade Union Cen­tre (Natuc) gen­er­al sec­re­tary Vin­cent Cabr­era vowed yes­ter­day.

He was speak­ing dur­ing May Day cel­e­bra­tions in San Fer­nan­do yes­ter­day. Ad­dress­ing thou­sands of work­ers, Cabr­era vowed to mount pub­lic protests, march­es and vig­ils if the Gov­ern­ment brought in the IMF to ad­dress eco­nom­ic prob­lems.

Say­ing IMF poli­cies had failed in Africa, Ja­maica and Guyana, Cabr­era said pri­vati­sa­tion, high­er crime rates and more job loss­es will oc­cur if the IMF in­ter­vened in man­ag­ing T&T's econ­o­my. He not­ed that the IMF's pro­pos­als will bring ru­in to the work­ing class­es.

"We don't want the IMF in Trinidad! All over Africa, the IMF in­tro­duced struc­tur­al ad­just­ment pro­grammes. It's years lat­er they ad­mit­ted that those poli­cies failed. So we have to be care­ful about the IMF," Cabr­era said. He said if the IMF comes in­to T&T, con­di­tion­al­i­ties will be in­tro­duced.