The trade union move­ment has said it will not be re­turn­ing to NTAC—the Na­tion­al Tri­par­tite Ad­vi­so­ry Coun­cil—in an of­fi­cial, joint state­ment that re­bukes the Gov­ern­ment for its fail­ure to op­er­ate in good faith with the Coun­cil.

All three trade union fed­er­a­tions signed the joint state­ment, which says they will not re­turn un­less cer­tain de­mands are met, in­clud­ing a halt to any new tax­a­tion plans; a ces­sa­tion of pri­vati­sa­tion ac­tiv­i­ties and pos­si­ble re­trench­ment; and set­tle­ment of out­stand­ing ne­go­ti­a­tions.

“The ab­sence of these pre­con­di­tions will mean that the gov­ern­ment is not se­ri­ous about so­cial di­a­logue and the trade union move­ment will not be part of any pap­py show,” the joint state­ment said.

The fol­low­ing is the full text of the state­ment re­leased by the trade union fed­er­a­tions…

The coun­try’s three trade union fed­er­a­tions, the Na­tion­al Trade Union Cen­tre (NATUC), Joint Trade Union Move­ment (JTUM) and the Fed­er­a­tion of In­de­pen­dent Trade Unions and NGOS (FI­TUN) stands firm­ly be­hind our de­ci­sion to with­draw from the Na­tion­al Tri­par­tite Ad­vi­so­ry Coun­cil (NTAC). As far as the en­tire labour move­ment is con­cerned, NTAC and tri­par­tism is dead in Trinidad and To­ba­go.

TRI­PAR­TISM is a process of So­cial Di­a­logue that has been in­sti­tu­tion­al­ized by the In­ter­na­tion­al Labour Or­gan­i­sa­tion, ILO, as one that is con­sti­tut­ed be­tween the three (3) main So­cial Part­ners with­in the econ­o­my, i.e., Gov­ern­ment, Busi­ness and Labour. The ILO de­scribed Tri­par­tism as “the in­ter­ac­tion of gov­ern­ment, em­ploy­ers and work­ers (through their rep­re­sen­ta­tives) as equal and in­de­pen­dent part­ners to seek so­lu­tions to is­sues of com­mon con­cern”. The Prime Min­is­ter has ob­fus­cat­ed his re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to en­gage with so­cial part­ners on any is­sue fac­ing the cit­i­zens of Trinidad and To­ba­go in clear vi­o­la­tion of the prin­ci­ples of ILO Tri­par­tism.

The fact re­mains that whilst the is­sue of Petrotrin’s clo­sure was raised at NTAC by the trade union move­ment, the gov­ern­ment re­fused to hold a dis­cus­sion on the is­sue at NTAC. In ad­di­tion, re­trench­ments and clo­sures of state en­ter­pris­es con­tin­ue un­abat­ed, where thou­sands of work­ers have gone home with the re­cent case be­ing TSTT and many more are un­der the threat to go. These in­clude work­ers at WASA, T&TEC, TTPOST, PTSC, MTS, BIR, Cus­toms, SWM­COL, NP, Lake As­phalt, the Port of Port of Spain and the Port of Scar­bor­ough. The gov­ern­ment has made no ef­fort to put a prop­er pen­sion plan in place for the thou­sands of dai­ly rat­ed work­ers. The gov­ern­ment has al­so in­creased fu­el costs four times. They have in­tro­duced ab­solute­ly no mea­sures to mit­i­gate the great eco­nom­ic hard­ship fac­ing the cit­i­zens of Trinidad and To­ba­go and they are still prepar­ing to in­tro­duce prop­er­ty tax on an al­ready over-bur­dened pop­u­la­tion.

The trade union move­ment al­so notes with great con­cern the hypocrisy of the gov­ern­ment as the Prime Min­is­ter at­tempts to en­gage in ne­go­ti­a­tions in the pub­lic do­main. Apart from the dis­re­spect for the col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing process, he has clear­ly shown the gov­ern­ment hand and there­fore there is noth­ing left for the CPO to ne­go­ti­ate. We re­it­er­ate our ab­solute re­jec­tion of the 4% of­fer over two pe­ri­ods of ne­go­ti­a­tions from as far back as 2013.

Fi­nal­ly, we wish to re­it­er­ate our po­si­tion that our re­turn to NTAC un­der the cur­rent con­di­tions and be­hav­iour of this gov­ern­ment would be sac­ri­le­gious to the aims and ob­jec­tives of the trade union move­ment. As such, with­out apol­o­gy, we stand firm in our po­si­tion to re­move our­selves from the NTAC in the in­ter­est of all work­ers who con­tin­ue to be bru­tal­ized on a dai­ly ba­sis. Clear­ly, Work­ers have gained ab­solute­ly noth­ing from our par­tic­i­pa­tion in NTAC.

For the trade union move­ment to even con­sid­er re­turn­ing to NTAC there has to be: -

●   An im­me­di­ate halt to pri­va­ti­za­tion un­der the guise of re­struc­tur­ing of state of as­sets with the ad­verse con­se­quences of many thou­sands of work­ers be­ing re­trenched.

●   An im­me­di­ate halt to any fur­ther re­trench­ments and to im­me­di­ate­ly hold dis­cus­sions with the trade union move­ment

●   The pack­age of labour leg­is­la­tion, the trade union move­ment has par­tic­i­pat­ed in many con­sul­ta­tions and rec­om­men­da­tions of the In­dus­tri­al Re­la­tions Ad­vi­so­ry Com­mit­tee (IRAC), must be brought to the par­lia­ment.

●   An im­me­di­ate mean­ing­ful set­tle­ment of all out­stand­ing pub­lic sec­tor ne­go­ti­a­tions.

●   Mea­sures to mit­i­gate the pain and suf­fer­ing of the peo­ple from the high and ris­ing cost must be in place.

●   An im­me­di­ate halt to any new form of tax­a­tion.

The ab­sence of these pre­con­di­tions will mean that the gov­ern­ment is not se­ri­ous about so­cial di­a­logue and the trade union move­ment will not be part of any pap­py show.  We wish to re­mind all that for rea­sons stat­ed above and oth­ers on Labour Day thou­sands of work­ers gath­ered in Scar­bor­ough and Fyz­abad vot­ed unan­i­mous­ly in sup­port of the trade union move­ment’s mo­tion of no con­fi­dence in Dr. Kei­th Row­ley as Prime Min­is­ter and al­so no con­fi­dence in his ad­min­is­tra­tion. The Prime Min­is­ter and the gov­ern­ment and their uni­lat­er­al de­ci­sion-mak­ing has shown a com­plete dis­re­gard for ba­sic de­mo­c­ra­t­ic prin­ci­ples and con­tin­ue to gov­ern with­out the con­sent of the gov­erned.   

JOINT TRADE UNION MOVE­MENT (JTUM)
NA­TION­AL TRADE UNION CEN­TRE (NATUC)
FED­ER­A­TION OF IN­DE­PEN­DENT TRADE UNIONS AND NGOS (FI­TUN)