Rad­hi­ca Sookraj

Pres­i­dent gen­er­al of Oil­fields Work­ers Trade Union (OW­TU) An­cel Ro­get says he has no in­ten­tion of con­test­ing any seat in the up­com­ing gen­er­al elec­tion.

Ro­get was speak­ing to re­porters dur­ing a joint trade union coss­abo, at the union's head­quar­ters in San Fer­nan­do. Ro­get ex­pressed sur­prise over news­pa­per re­ports that he was a can­di­date. "I want to state cat­e­gor­i­cal­ly that I am not go­ing up as any can­di­date for any con­stituen­cy. There is ab­solute­ly no truth to that re­port."To pub­lish such a re­port in a high­ly-charged po­lit­i­cal en­vi­ron­ment is one for con­cern and wor­ry." Ro­get re­it­er­at­ed that he was nev­er ap­proached by any po­lit­i­cal par­ty to con­test a seat. "What we are do­ing here to­day is we are dis­cussing our own in­ter­ven­tion as work­ers.

"We have called all branch of­fi­cers and shop stew­ards in a wider dis­cus­sion to dis­cuss the type of in­ter­ven­tion we should make in the elec­tion, so at the end of the day we are giv­en a man­date as to what type of in­ter­ven­tion we should make for the en­tire so­ci­ety as a whole." He not­ed that as leader of OW­TU, his man­date was to pro­tect work­ers and seek the in­ter­est of the so­ci­ety. Claim­ing re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for the col­lapse of the PNM ad­min­is­tra­tion, Ro­get said it was the trade union move­ment which suc­cess­ful­ly brought pres­sure on the Gov­ern­ment by high­light­ing cor­rup­tion. "For far too long, work­ers have been call­ing for an im­proved qual­i­ty of life. We be­lieve that labour lead­ers and trade unions should be well rep­re­sent­ed in the cor­ri­dors of pow­er. We seek pow­er to safe­guard work­ers' in­ter­ests." Ro­get said the labour move­ment would cre­ate a new po­lit­i­cal ve­hi­cle which would de­ter­mine its agen­da.

Asked about his views on a COP/UNC coali­tion, Ro­get said it was too ear­ly to spec­u­late. "My un­der­stand­ing is dis­cus­sions are still tak­ing place, and it is a good thing for any­body who has the com­mon in­ter­est of get­ting rid of the PNM," he said. While he sup­port­ed the role of trade union­ists in pol­i­tics, Ro­get said he had no in­ten­tion of fight­ing any seat. "That is not on the cards at this point, but we will con­tin­ue to high­light is­sues and put in place a for­mi­da­ble sys­tem of gov­er­nance that al­lows every­one in the coun­try to ben­e­fit, not just a few," he added. He said the OW­TU would hold its own meet­ings to high­light the Gov­ern­ment's fail­ure to tack­le al­le­ga­tions of cor­rup­tion in T&TEC, Ude­cott and Petrotrin.

Mean­while, pres­i­dent gen­er­al of BIG­WU Vin­cent Cabr­era said work­ers were un­der at­tack, and it was up to the unions to save the na­tion. "We must seek to reach a gen­uine work­ers' agen­da. The work­ers will nev­er for­give us if we com­pro­mise their strug­gle," he said. He said the PNM was con­tin­u­ing to at­tack the me­dia and trade unions and would nev­er win the elec­tion.