President general of the Oilfield Workers' Trade Union (OWTU) Ancel Roget is warning Government that recent attempts to trample the labour movement will be met with strong acts of resistance. His comments came after state-owned TSTT and the Public Transport Service Corporation (PTSC) filed separate applications in the Industrial Court to have the Communications Workers' Trade Union and the Transport and Industrial Workers' Trade Union decertified.
In a statement yesterday, Roget said the recent action showed that the Government was trampling on workers' rights. "For a long time OWTU has been warning the country about the anti-worker, anti-people stands of this government...It started with WASA workers, then TSTT workers and now more recently PTSC workers," he said. "The Oilfield Workers' Trade Union will not allow this trend to continue as workers exercising their constitutional rights to protest and to demand better terms and conditions of work in order to fulfil a decent standard of living."
He noted that in a time of recession and economic downturn workers were being dismissed. "Such attacks against labour are attacks against the democracy of a country," Roget said. "The Oilfield Workers' Trade Union is prepared to swiftly match these frontal attacks with defiance and the full resolve of all workers whose rights must be defended at all cost and by all necessary means."
He also noted that such labour attacks in the past had been met with extreme resistance and force. He called on TSTT to immediately withdraw an industrial relations matter and the application before the court to decertify CWU as the majority recognised union. Roget also called for workers dismissed by WASA, PTSC and TSTT to be unconditionally reinstated.
