Labour Day is be­ing com­mem­o­rat­ed to­day in an in­dus­tri­al re­la­tions cli­mate that is the most tur­bu­lent it has been in years.

Ne­go­ti­a­tions be­tween Chief Per­son­nel Of­fi­cer Dr Daryl Din­di­al and pub­lic sec­tor unions got off to a rocky start last month with the unan­i­mous re­jec­tion of the ini­tial wage in­crease of­fer of two per cent. To un­der­score their dis­dain for the pro­pos­al, work­ers turned out in their num­bers for a protest march through Port-of-Spain.

But the ac­tion has so far elicit­ed on­ly a slight in­crease in the of­fer from the CPO, and the gulf be­tween that pro­pos­al and the dou­ble-dig­it de­mands from the unions re­mains in­sur­mount­able.

The unions have warned the Gov­ern­ment to pre­pare for more in­dus­tri­al un­rest over an of­fer, which the Na­tion­al Trade Union Cen­tre has de­scribed as an act of eco­nom­ic vi­o­lence and abuse against gov­ern­ment em­ploy­ees.

Adding to the tense at­mos­phere is the loom­ing re­trench­ment of more than 300 em­ploy­ees of Telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions Ser­vices of Trinidad and To­ba­go (TSTT) who were served with sev­er­ance let­ters for the sec­ond time on Fri­day.

Loss of em­ploy­ment is al­so in the im­me­di­ate fu­ture for just over 100 em­ploy­ees of Unilever Caribbean Ltd (UCL) with the clo­sure of that multi­na­tion­al cor­po­ra­tion’s man­u­fac­tur­ing di­vi­sion in T&T on Ju­ly 31.

As they con­verge on the tra­di­tion­al birth­place of the labour move­ment in Fyz­abad, trade union lead­ers are send­ing a grim mes­sage to all work­ers that their jobs could be at risk. To high­light their dis­dain for re­cent gov­ern­ment de­ci­sions, the unions will ta­ble a mo­tion of no con­fi­dence in Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley.

Al­though unions have al­ways used the Labour Day plat­form to air their griev­ances against the Gov­ern­ment of the day, this year so­cial and eco­nom­ic chal­lenges have added some im­pe­tus to their an­ti-es­tab­lish­ment pos­tur­ing.

But even as they fo­cus on con­tem­po­rary is­sues, trade union­ists will al­so be re­flect­ing on the his­toric events that took place 85 years ago on June 19.

Oil work­ers at For­est Re­serve un­der the lead­er­ship of Tubal Uri­ah But­ler be­gan strike ac­tion. An at­tempt to ar­rest But­ler for in­cit­ing breach­es of the peace sparks wide­spread ri­ots and un­rest. These came to a head in Fyz­abad where two po­lice of­fi­cers, Cor­po­ral Char­lie King, and Sub-In­spec­tor Brad­burn, along with nine civil­ians were killed and 50 oth­ers wound­ed.

As was the case in 1937, the work­ers’ cry to­day is for de­cent con­di­tions of em­ploy­ment, fair wages, and so­cial re­forms.

In the­o­ry, that does not seem so far re­moved from the cur­rent Gov­ern­ment’s pol­i­cy “to fos­ter and de­vel­op a peace­ful, com­pet­i­tive and pro­duc­tive in­dus­tri­al re­la­tions cli­mate.” But the re­al­i­ty is that re­la­tions be­tween gov­ern­ment and labour are far from cor­dial, and prospects for mean­ing­ful di­a­logue are dim.

T&T’s post-COVID-19 re­cov­ery frame­work re­quires poli­cies to in­crease pro­duc­tiv­i­ty, build a dy­nam­ic labour mar­ket, and fos­ter a sup­port­ive in­dus­tri­al re­la­tions en­vi­ron­ment. To achieve these ob­jec­tives, gov­ern­ment, and labour, along with the pri­vate sec­tor, must demon­strate flex­i­bil­i­ty and will­ing­ness to par­tic­i­pate in open di­a­logue.

Un­for­tu­nate­ly, pol­i­tics, dif­fer­ing ide­olo­gies and self-serv­ing agen­das have cre­at­ed the frac­tious in­dus­tri­al re­la­tions cli­mate in which Labour Day 2022 is be­ing ob­served. As a re­sult, there is lit­tle chance of the crit­i­cal is­sues be­ing ad­dressed in Fyz­abad to­day.

The strug­gle con­tin­ues.