Rad­hi­ca Sookraj

In a fiery ad­dress at the start of trade union week, OW­TU's pres­i­dent gen­er­al An­cel Ro­get called on Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar to get rid of the "PNM snakes" in the State sec­tor en­ter­pris­es, who were try­ing to "set up" Works and Trans­port Min­is­ter Jack Warn­er.

The func­tion took place at the union's Para­mount Build­ing head­quar­ters, San Fer­nan­do. Ro­get, who praised Per­sad-Bisses­sar for call­ing for a probe in­to the award of a light­ing con­tract at Pi­ar­co Air­port, said there were peo­ple who want­ed to cause "ku­choor" (bac­cha­nal) be­tween the OW­TU and the Gov­ern­ment.

Say­ing his union would not fall prey to such "col­lu­sion," Ro­get called on mem­bers to throw their sup­port be­hind Labour Min­is­ter Er­rol McLeod, whom he said was pi­o­neer­ing an agen­da to pro­tect the rights of work­ers.

Ro­get said the union knew that Per­sad-Bisses­sar was some­one who lis­tened to the con­cerns of the peo­ple."We know that our dear sis­ter has a mantra to lis­ten to the peo­ple so we want to com­mend her for lis­ten­ing to the com­plaints and putting a halt on the award of the con­tract," Ro­get said.

How­ev­er, he said there was an ur­gent need to re­move the "PNM snakes" be­fore they caused more trou­ble."There are peo­ple from the air­port en­quiry who want to set up Jack Warn­er," Ro­get charged.

He added: "They want to set up the En­er­gy Min­is­ter. They are like snakes in the grass and our work will not be com­plete un­til we re­move those snakes."

He warned that Gov­ern­ment would see the "wrath" of the OW­TU if the "PNM snakes" were not re­moved. "The OW­TU will be up­set with the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship if they keep those agents of the PNM. I have no fear of say­ing this. We must do all that is pos­si­ble to en­sure that we re­move the peo­ple who are against us," Ro­get said.

Ro­get al­so echoed McLeod's call for all work­ers to strive for max­i­mum pro­duc­tiv­i­ty, pro­vid­ing they had a prop­er work­ing en­vi­ron­ment.He said labour lead­ers must be a part of board ap­point­ments so they could con­tribute to pol­i­cy di­rec­tives.

Dur­ing the func­tion, Ro­get al­so launched the OW­TU's web­site which pro­vides in­for­ma­tion on the his­to­ry, struc­ture, ac­tiv­i­ties, goals and achieve­ments of the union.