For­mer trade union leader and min­is­ter of labour Er­rol McLeod is now blast­ing the trade union move­ment for be­ing too in­volved in pol­i­tics.

In a brief in­ter­view yes­ter­day, McLeod said the sur­vival of the trade union move­ment was now de­pen­dent on a co­he­sive but po­lit­i­cal­ly neu­tral stance.

"Many of them in the lead­er­ship of trade unions to­day, have to deal with the per­cep­tion that they are in the pock­ets of par­tic­u­lar politic el­e­ments," McLeod said.

He did not want to ex­pand or name names.

"Let's just say that the protests have not been gen­uine protests. I don't know if I want to put it any clear­er than that," he said.

McLeod re­tired from the Oil­fields Work­ers Trade Union (OW­TU) in 2008 af­ter serv­ing for 26 years. By 2010 he en­tered pol­i­tics on the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship tick­et and be­came min­is­ter of Labour.

Dur­ing the cam­paign­ing for the 2010 gen­er­al elec­tion, McLeod's suc­ces­sor An­cel Ro­get spoke on sev­er­al Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship plat­forms. Ro­get was vo­cal against the then Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM).

Ro­get and the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship warred ear­ly on af­ter for­mer prime min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar took of­fice when the then gov­ern­ment was ac­cused of im­pos­ing a wage cap on col­lec­tive ne­go­ti­a­tions.

Just be­fore the 2015 gen­er­al elec­tion, Ro­get met with then op­po­si­tion leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley and cam­paigned against the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC).

Last year, be­fore the com­plete shut­down of Petrotrin, Row­ley and Ro­get fell out and Ro­get has since met sev­er­al bod­ies in­clud­ing op­po­si­tion leader to share his union's plan for the state oil com­pa­ny.

McLeod called for the unions to be bet­ter or­gan­ised in or­der to sur­vive.

"The unions go­ing for­ward, first of all, have to be or­gan­ised, unit­ed across in­dus­tri­al ar­eas, across oc­cu­pa­tions," he said.

He said the move­ment lost mo­men­tum when it be­came too in­volved in the po­lit­i­cal are­na.

"They must re­turn to the ba­sis on which they were formed," McLeod said.

"They must have a mea­sure of prag­ma­tism, de­ter­mined to fight every­one who is op­posed to the growth and de­vel­op­ment of the trade unions," he added.