Akash Sama­roo

Bridgetown, Bar­ba­dos

Sea­men and Wa­ter­front Work­ers’ Trade Union (SWW­TU) pres­i­dent Michael An­nisette has en­dorsed the de­ci­sion by two union lead­ers to con­test seats with the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress.

On Wednes­day, the Oil­field Work­ers’ Trade Union (OW­TU) pre­sent­ed Clyde El­der and Ernesto Ke­sar as can­di­dates for La Brea and Point Fortin re­spec­tive­ly.

El­der was the for­mer sec­re­tary gen­er­al of the Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Work­ers’ Union (CWU), while Ke­sar is now the vice pres­i­dent of the OW­TU.

Speak­ing in Bar­ba­dos on Wednes­day, where he was at­tend­ing the 48th Reg­u­lar Meet­ing of the Con­fer­ence of Cari­com Heads of Gov­ern­ment in his ca­pac­i­ty as gen­er­al sec­re­tary of the Caribbean Con­gress of Labour, he said he saw no is­sue with the al­liance as pol­i­tics and trade union­ism go hand in hand.

“The labour move­ment has been born out of the bel­ly of pol­i­tics be­cause pol­i­tics is about life. And if you look all through the Caribbean re­gion most of the po­lit­i­cal par­ties who are in pow­er, came from the bel­ly of the trade union move­ment. And I be­lieve that trade union­ists who rep­re­sent work­ers must have a say in the con­text of any­thing hap­pen­ing in the Caribbean re­gion. Be­cause pol­i­tics dri­ve the de­ci­sions that af­fect the labour move­ment, by ex­ten­sion the work­ers, the poor and the dis­ad­van­taged, so we are by ex­ten­sion the so­cial con­science for these groups of peo­ple. The sin­gle par­ent, the pen­sion­ers, we are the re­al voice,” he said.

Ac­knowl­edg­ing that both the OW­TU and UNC leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar have had a tu­mul­tuous re­la­tion­ship in the past, An­nisette said, “You live with a wife, you mash up and break up and then make back up. The is­sue to me is whether or not the UNC or any po­lit­i­cal par­ty has a labour agen­da where labour, work­ers and peo­ple be­come the cen­tre of what­ev­er pol­i­cy that any gov­ern­ment in pow­er puts for­ward.”

The SWW­TU leader, who him­self was at odds with the gov­ern­ment over wage ne­go­ti­a­tions for port work­ers, said the gov­ern­ment’s re­cent ac­cep­tance of a hefty wage in­crease as pro­posed by the Salaries Re­view Com­mis­sion (SRC) is an in­sult to the poor and work­ing class.

“I can­not help but men­tion the 4 per cent over a six-year pe­ri­od. That was done in a most ar­ro­gant and dis­re­spect­ful way. It has demon­strat­ed that this gov­ern­ment does not care about labour. But more im­por­tant­ly, when they got 48 per cent they ac­cept­ed it when you are ask­ing the work­ing class and the poor to make ul­ti­mate sac­ri­fices for the econ­o­my but then you go about ac­cept­ing an in­crease at that lev­el. And how do we as the labour move­ment, how do we ad­dress these is­sues? Is it about UNC or PNM? No, it is about a phi­los­o­phy that is root­ed in the con­text that it must be peo­ple-cen­tred and the voice­less must see a lev­el of so­cial jus­tice.”