Trade union lead­ers say that even if the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) re­turns to of­fice fol­low­ing the 2025 gen­er­al elec­tions with­out Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley, there will be no im­prove­ment in the coun­try’s in­dus­tri­al re­la­tions cli­mate.

Fed­er­a­tion of In­de­pen­dent Trade Unions and Non-Gov­ern­men­tal Or­gan­i­sa­tions (FI­TUN) pres­i­dent Joseph Re­my de­scribed the re­la­tion­ship be­tween the Gov­ern­ment and the labour move­ment as be­ing at an all-time low.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Re­my crit­i­cised Row­ley’s tenure as Prime Min­is­ter, par­tic­u­lar­ly in re­la­tion to labour is­sues. He at­trib­uted this to the Row­ley-led Gov­ern­ment’s pol­i­cy pre­scrip­tions and what he called, its re­luc­tance to pro­mote eq­ui­ty.

Cit­ing the dis­par­i­ty in salary ad­just­ments, Re­my point­ed to the pro­posed pay hikes for par­lia­men­tar­i­ans, which Row­ley ac­cept­ed, in stark con­trast to the four per cent salary in­crease the Gov­ern­ment “shoved down the throats of pub­lic ser­vants.”

Ac­cord­ing to Re­my, un­less the par­ty’s poli­cies un­der­go sig­nif­i­cant change, a new leader will make no dif­fer­ence.

“It is a grave in­equity and in­jus­tice, and I be­lieve that has ce­ment­ed the in­dus­tri­al re­la­tions cli­mate that demon­strat­ed that there is no care for the av­er­age work­er at the bot­tom. That, to me, is re­al­ly a sig­nal of the re­la­tion­ship that ex­ist­ed be­tween the Gov­ern­ment and the labour move­ment, and it demon­strates that there is no re­spect for the labour move­ment what­so­ev­er, and it is some­thing I am to­tal­ly dis­ap­point­ed in,” Re­my said.

Re­my al­so crit­i­cised Row­ley’s lead­er­ship style, say­ing it lacked the in­spi­ra­tion nec­es­sary to unite cit­i­zens around a com­mon vi­sion. He said while trade unions want­ed a firm hand to steer the coun­try through chal­leng­ing times, Row­ley’s ap­proach failed to fos­ter align­ment or en­thu­si­asm.

“If you look at the his­to­ry of the re­la­tion­ship be­tween the PNM gov­ern­ments and labour, you would see that they tried to em­brace trade union lead­ers and bring them across in­to their realm, and then they emas­cu­late the move­ment. That is my opin­ion, and I do not see any signs of an im­proved re­la­tion­ship. They at­tempt­ed to do some­thing with the Na­tion­al Tri­par­tite Ad­vi­so­ry Coun­cil. They are blam­ing labour for leav­ing, but they were not do­ing it how tri­par­tism is sup­posed to have been done.”

While not sur­prised by Row­ley’s an­nounce­ment of his re­tire­ment, Re­my ex­pressed con­cern about its tim­ing, as the Gov­ern­ment had just de­clared a State of Emer­gency (SoE). He ar­gued that as leader of the Gov­ern­ment and head of the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil (NSC), Row­ley should re­main at the helm dur­ing such crit­i­cal times be­fore de­cid­ing his fu­ture.

Re­my warned that Row­ley’s in­ten­tion to step down risks cre­at­ing a lead­er­ship vac­u­um and urged the Prime Min­is­ter to pri­ori­tise steer­ing the coun­try through the chal­lenges posed by the SoE.

“I think if any leader wants to take us through rough pe­ri­ods, there should be some lev­el of align­ment with the cit­i­zen­ry and some lev­el of in­spi­ra­tional lead­er­ship and a charis­mat­ic ap­proach to get peo­ple on board with you. You can­not bouf peo­ple in­to re­al­i­ty.”

Mean­while, Joint Trade Union Move­ment’s (JTUM) gen­er­al sec­re­tary Ozzi War­wick said Row­ley’s an­nounced re­tire­ment and oth­er po­lit­i­cal de­vel­op­ments would be dis­cussed at their first lead­er­ship meet­ing of 2025 on Wednes­day.

Fol­low­ing the meet­ing, JTUM plans to is­sue a state­ment ad­dress­ing the re­tire­ment, along with oth­er press­ing is­sues such as out­stand­ing ne­go­ti­a­tions, the lack of new labour leg­is­la­tion, and chal­lenges at the In­dus­tri­al Court.

“There is still, al­so, the out­stand­ing is­sue of crime, vi­o­lence, con­tin­ued pover­ty, in­equal­i­ty, un­fair­ness which con­tin­ues to plague Trinidad and To­ba­go, all the out­stand­ing is­sues that the trade union move­ment is fac­ing com­ing out of 2024,” War­wick said.