Rad­hi­ca Sookraj

Po­lit­i­cal leader of the Move­ment for So­cial Jus­tice (MSJ), Er­rol McLeod has re­signed his post and has hand­ed over the ba­ton to Sen­a­tor David Ab­du­lah. McLeod made the rev­e­la­tion dur­ing a press con­fer­ence held in Port-of-Spain yes­ter­day morn­ing. Giv­ing a brief state­ment, McLeod said that his res­ig­na­tion would al­low him ad­di­tion­al time to up­grade ex­ist­ing labour leg­is­la­tion, as well as pro­mote the Work­ers Agen­da. Say­ing that the MSJ was head­ing to be the pre­mier po­lit­i­cal par­ty in the coun­try, McLeod ex­plained that ever since the sign­ing of the Fyz­abad De­c­la­ra­tion, which re­sult­ed in the es­tab­lish­ment of the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship, he has re­alised that there was a lot to do to take the MSJ for­ward.

How­ev­er, he said he could not com­mit to the role be­cause of his re­spon­si­bil­i­ties as Min­is­ter of Labour and MP for Pointe-a-Pierre. McLeod not­ed that he didn't want to be an ab­sen­tee leader and af­ter dis­cussing it with the ex­ec­u­tive coun­cil of the MSJ, he de­cid­ed to ten­der his res­ig­na­tion, which the coun­cil ac­cept­ed. McLeod added that Sen­a­tor Ab­du­lah would as­sume the post of po­lit­i­cal leader but he did not say whether the ap­point­ment will be one of elec­tion or suc­ces­sion. Mean­while, Ab­du­lah com­mend­ed McLeod for his con­tri­bu­tion to the par­ty which was formed in 2010, short­ly be­fore the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship was elect­ed in­to of­fice.

Speak­ing to re­porters fol­low­ing the fu­ner­al ser­vice of fall­en com­rade Gary Pat­ter­son, Ab­du­lah said McLeod's res­ig­na­tion will auger well for the MSJ. He not­ed that 2012 is the year of the MSJ and ground troops had to be­gin mo­bil­is­ing sup­port for the par­ty. He ex­plained that McLeod will be pi­lot­ing a lot of new leg­isla­tive re­form to safe­guard the in­ter­ests of the work­ing class. "I know he has been work­ing on as­pects of the Work­ers Agen­da, the Min­i­mum Wage Leg­is­la­tion, for ex­am­ple, the Ma­ter­ni­ty Pro­tec­tion Act, as well as oth­er pieces of leg­is­la­tion which has been brought to the Leg­isla­tive Re­view Com­mit­tee of the Cab­i­net and we hope that they will be brought to the Par­lia­ment soon," Ab­du­lah said.

He added that oth­er key pieces of leg­is­la­tion such as the Mas­ters and Ser­vants Or­di­nance, the Work­men Com­pen­sa­tion Act and the amend­ments to the In­dus­tri­al Re­la­tions Act, are al­so on stream. Mean­while, Dr Roodal Mooni­lal com­mend­ed McLeod for his move. He said: "Mr Mc Leod is a sea­soned na­tion­al leader and will con­tin­ue to ex­cel in his labour sec­tor." He added that McLeod had "in­no­v­a­tive and path-break­ing leg­is­la­tion to pi­lot in the up­com­ing days." Pres­i­dent gen­er­al of the Oil­fields Work­ers' Trade Union, An­cel Ro­get al­so said that he looked for­ward to the new leg­is­la­tion as too many work­ers were still be­ing ex­ploit­ed in T&T.