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Saturday, March 22, 2025

Unions ready to rumble again

Where is Jennifer?

by

Peter Christopher
2290 days ago
20181213
OWTU President General Ancel Roget address members of the medis during the press conference yesterday while CWU sec­re­tary gen­er­al Clyde El­der listens.

OWTU President General Ancel Roget address members of the medis during the press conference yesterday while CWU sec­re­tary gen­er­al Clyde El­der listens.

SHIRLEY BAHADUR

Mem­bers of the Joint Trade Union Move­ment are call­ing for the Min­is­ter of Labour Jen­nifer Bap­tiste-Primus to ad­dress what they are call­ing “union-bust­ing” tac­tics by the Gov­ern­ment.

Dur­ing a press con­fer­ence at the Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Work­ers’ Union Hall this morn­ing (Thurs­day), sev­er­al union lead­ers, in­clud­ing Joint Trade Union head An­cel Ro­get, NATUC and PSA pres­i­dent Wat­son Duke, joined CWU leader Clyde El­der as he ex­pressed his con­cerns over Wednes­day’s in­ci­dent in which he was bod­i­ly thrown out of TSTT’s at Nel­son Ex­change in Port-of-Spain.

El­der host­ed the con­fer­ence to give fur­ther the de­tails on the in­ci­dent. He ex­plained that he was ful­fil­ing his du­ty as leader of the rep­re­sen­ta­tive union for TSTT work­ers amid news that 51 more work­ers were dis­missed from the com­pa­ny when the in­ci­dent hap­pened. He main­tained he was do­ing his job law­ful­ly when he was ap­proached by armed se­cu­ri­ty and forcibly re­moved him from the com­pound.

“Where is the voice of the Min­is­ter of Labour? Have you lost it? Madame Jen­nifer Bap­tiste-Primus, you were once a labour leader, would you have stood for this at­tack on the trade union move­ment? Would you have al­lowed this hap­pen if it was you lead­ing the PSA?” asked El­der.

“Where is your voice when the rights of trade unions un­der the IRA is be­ing vi­o­lat­ed? Where is your voice when force is used against a trade union leader?

Oil­fields Work­ers’ Trade Union leader An­cel Ro­get called on Bap­tiste-Primus to speak on the mat­ter di­rect­ly.

“We want to call on Min­is­ter of Labour to break her si­lence and to come out of what­ev­er co­coon she is in right now. And to stop putting her job and her own per­son­al in­ter­est ahead in­ter­est of work­ing peo­ple in this coun­try,” he said.

Duke was far more mil­i­tant in his state­ment. He said if the Gov­ern­ment was plan­ning to use sim­i­lar tac­tics to re­trench work­ers at WASA, he would “un­leash the dogs of war.”

“There must be peo­ple with­in the trade union move­ment who are will­ing to die. Un­less you are will­ing to die you are not pre­pared to lead in the time of war,” Duke said.

“This is a pe­ri­od of war and I re­mind my cab­i­net friends that the day they come to WASA is the day they have to pre­pare the morgues for us. You’re not gonna take our bread and but­ter from us and ex­pect us to go home and be pussy­cats.”


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