Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son@guardian.co.tt

Calls for uni­ty to res­cue T&T echoed through Fyz­abad as hun­dreds of trade union mem­bers and their fam­i­lies marched through Fyz­abad.

Ozzi War­wick, the Chief Ed­u­ca­tion and Re­search Of­fi­cer of the Oil­fields Work­ers’ Trade Union, said the turn out was bet­ter than ex­pect­ed.

Com­menc­ing at 10.45 am, mem­bers from some 20 trade unions be­gan the march from Av­o­cat Junc­tion and, as they pro­ceed­ed to Char­lie King Junc­tion, res­i­dents and spec­ta­tors along the route were urged to join the march and their cause.

Work­ers and union lead­ers wore the jer­seys rep­re­sent­ing their re­spec­tive trade unions, as they marched un­der the theme Peo­ple Pow­er Peo­ple Mat­ter, to the rhythm of Fyz­abad Cadet Corps of T&T and mu­sic truck un­der the watch­ful eye of a large con­tin­gent of po­lice of­fi­cers.

Al­so par­tic­i­pat­ing in the march were the fam­i­ly and friends of the four dri­vers killed in the Paria tragedy on Feb­ru­ary 25, 2022.

Is­su­ing the in­vi­ta­tion over the speak­er sys­tem, for­mer OW­TU of­fi­cer, Fitzroy Lewis, in­sist­ed the trade union move­ment is the on­ly so­lu­tion to the is­sues fac­ing work­ers and the coun­try.

“We have to res­cue our­selves. Our coun­try has de­scend­ed in­to a bar­bar­ic state,” he said.

They urged mem­bers of the pub­lic to al­so join in their bat­tle to re­move the Gov­ern­ment and fight for work­ers’ rights.

One fi­nan­cial mem­ber of the In­dus­tri­al Work­ers Union, Thier­ry Samp­son, told re­porters he was not hap­py with the rep­re­sen­ta­tion giv­en by the trade unions.

He said, “These union lead­ers are hyp­ocrites be­cause in­stead of unit­ing as one and com­ing to­geth­er and mak­ing a stand against the Gov­ern­ment, say some­thing like shut down or let we protest, let we make a stand against the Gov­ern­ment, they don’t do it. But they ma­m­aguy­ing the pub­lic and every­body com­ing to­geth­er here.”

Shade de­scribed the turn out as poor. “I just want to high­light the is­sue that these union lead­ers not gen­uine. Look at how many peo­ple here. This is an em­bar­rass­ment. It was sup­posed to have more peo­ple than that but the peo­ple re­alised that the union lead­ers, sold out. They not for the work­ers. Why don’t they come to­geth­er?”

A res­i­dent, who gave her name as Ms Seep­er­sad, was dis­ap­point­ed with the turn out. Seep­er­sad, who has been liv­ing in the com­mu­ni­ty for 39 years, said in the years gone by the num­bers were much more.

Mas­ter of Cer­e­monies, MSJ leader David Ab­du­lah, said they demon­strat­ed the pow­er of work­ers and peo­ple in Fyz­abad and they have to take that mo­men­tum through­out T&T.

He said the trade union move­ment is alive and well and is fight­ing back against op­pres­sion. Al­though the tra­di­tion­al race from OW­TU Head­quar­ters to Char­lie King Junc­tion was not held this year, mem­bers of the Ju­nior Bis­nath-led Kaisokah Moko Jumbies made the trek on stilts.

Some of the trade union mem­bers par­tic­i­pat­ing in the march were OW­TU, TTPostal Work­ers Union, Es­tate Po­lice As­so­ci­a­tion, Trinidad and To­ba­go Uni­fied Teach­ers As­so­ci­a­tion, Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Work­ers Unions and All Trinidad Gen­er­al Work­ers Union.

Ear­li­er, the cel­e­bra­tions kicked off with the wreath lay­ing cer­e­mo­ny at the Fyz­abad gravesite of union pi­o­neer Tubal Uri­ah “Buzz” But­ler.

In­stead of speech­es by trade union lead­ers as done in pre­vi­ous years, a mi­ni-prayer and thanks­giv­ing ser­vice was held at But­ler’s tomb­stone at Apex Ceme­tery.

Union lead­ers and mem­bers sang sev­er­al union songs as they ho­n­oured But­ler for the rev­o­lu­tion­ary move­ment in the 1930’s that gave birth to the trade union move­ment.

A wreath lay­ing cer­e­mo­ny was al­so done at the site along South­ern Main Road where the po­lice killed a man named La Brea Charles af­ter they mis­tak­en­ly iden­ti­fied him as But­ler.

At Char­lie King Junc­tion, mem­bers were ad­dressed by JTUM pres­i­dent An­cel Ro­get, PSA pres­i­dent Leroy Bap­tiste and NATUC gen­er­al sec­re­tary, Michael An­nisette.