KEVON FELMINE

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

Ahead of Fri­day’s planned day of rest and re­flec­tion, Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley is warn­ing Civ­il Avi­a­tion Au­thor­i­ty work­ers that if they take the ad­vice of the Pub­lic Ser­vice As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent Wat­son Duke to shut down T&T’s air­space, the Gov­ern­ment will take them to court.

Dur­ing a joint press con­fer­ence on Tues­day by the Joint Trade Union Move­ment (JTUM), Na­tion­al Trade Union Cen­tre (NATUC) and Fed­er­a­tion of In­de­pen­dent Trade Unions (FI­TUN), Duke called on mem­bers of the es­sen­tial ser­vices to take a sick day to rest and re­flect on the strug­gles the work­ing class face un­der the rul­ing Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM). This cat­e­go­ry of work­ers al­so in­cludes po­lice, fire of­fi­cers, prison of­fi­cers and teach­ers.

Un­der the In­dus­tri­al Re­la­tions Act, mem­bers of the es­sen­tial ser­vices are pro­hib­it­ed from en­gag­ing in in­dus­tri­al ac­tion. Breach of the Act can lead to fines and im­pris­on­ment for work­ers and union lead­ers. How­ev­er, the unions are not dub­bing the day of rest and re­flect as in­dus­tri­al ac­tion, but as a so­cial stand be­ing tak­en by all cit­i­zens, not just the work­ing class.

Re­spond­ing to Duke’s ap­peal on Tues­day night at a PNM meet­ing called to ad­dress the Petrotrin re­struc­tur­ing plan at the Mara­bel­la Com­mu­ni­ty Fa­cil­i­ty, Row­ley said that any strike by work­ers of the Civ­il Avi­a­tion Au­thor­i­ty could lead to a shut­down in the air­space, which could en­dan­ger the lives of peo­ple from the re­gion.

“My Gov­ern­ment is not en­gag­ing in any fight with any­body but we are go­ing to en­force the law. If civ­il avi­a­tion work­ers take that ir­re­spon­si­ble ad­vice and shut down our air­space, I don’t have to in­struct the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al to sue every one of them per­son­al­ly,” Row­ley said.

“And we’ll go where the law takes us. Wher­ev­er there are ir­re­spon­si­ble arrange­ments like that and en­cour­age­ment by lead­ers in com­mu­ni­ties or in the union to en­cour­age work­ers to break the law and put lives at risk, we are go­ing to the place where the law is and com­plain about those ac­tions.”

He ap­pealed to pub­lic sec­tor em­ploy­ees to ap­pre­ci­ate their jobs, say­ing that it was at the ex­pense of those who have none. He said the coun­try has gone an ex­tra mile to keep them em­ployed as it faces fi­nan­cial dif­fi­cul­ties. If the coun­try’s re­ward for do­ing this is for pub­lic ser­vants to en­dan­ger lives, he said the Gov­ern­ment will go to the court.

“There are gov­ern­ments who are less pres­sured than this gov­ern­ment and took ac­tion to re­duce its ex­pen­di­ture on the pub­lic ser­vice, we have not done that,” the PM said.

He said the PNM’s ac­tion was not about short-term pop­u­lar­i­ty, but about long-term sur­viv­abil­i­ty for all cit­i­zens. While this hap­pens, he said there will be good and bad days and while the Petrotrin’ is­sue would be con­sid­ered hard times, be care­ful about those who are just us­ing it to launch or res­ur­rect their po­lit­i­cal ca­reers.

Us­ing the old adage “Birds of a feath­er flock to­geth­er,” he said all of a sud­den Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar was chum­my with Oil­field Work­ers’ Trade Union pres­i­dent gen­er­al An­cel Ro­get and his pre­de­ces­sor Er­rol McLeod.

He said it was Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s fear of los­ing the elec­tion dur­ing her tenure that led her to take de­ci­sions that al­most led to the coun­try be­ing bank­rupt. He said now when the coun­try is fac­ing prob­lems she was hop­ing that the Gov­ern­ment would col­lapse. How­ev­er, he said that it has not and come Fri­day, cit­i­zens should cel­e­brate the PNM’s an­niver­sary of win­ning the 2015 gen­er­al elec­tion.

“When these things be­gin to hap­pen, you have to un­der­stand what you’re deal­ing with. As in­for­ma­tion comes to you, es­pe­cial­ly at this time, you have to look at who is talk­ing. The very same peo­ple who got us where we are to­day are out front, try­ing to hold them­selves to you as if they are a sav­iour in your mo­ment of grief and hurt.”

He said the Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship could have dealt with Petrotrin with less pain, as the Na­tion­al Gas Com­pa­ny (NGC) had $60 bil­lion in a bank ac­count that could have been used to bail out the oil com­pa­ny. In­stead, he said she spent it on oth­er things while en­rich­ing a few peo­ple.