CHESTER SAM­BRA­NO

Lead Ed­i­tor - News­gath­er­ing

chester.sam­bra­no@guardian.co.tt

Pres­i­dent of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Na­tion­al Nurs­es As­so­ci­a­tion, Idi Stu­art, has con­firmed that the union will pro­ceed with the planned protest de­spite the re­cent­ly de­clared State of Emer­gency.

Stu­art said the as­so­ci­a­tion is gear­ing up for a se­ries of peace­ful demon­stra­tions, be­gin­ning this Fri­day at the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal.

“This is just the first phase, where we’re go­ing to be en­gag­ing in a se­ries of peace­ful demon­stra­tions, be­gin­ning in San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal. This Fri­day, Fri­day the 6th, we will be in San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal as we high­light our mem­ber­ship is­sues.”

He called on the as­so­ci­a­tion’s mem­bers and all Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty work­ers to at­tend.

“We are ask­ing our mem­ber­ship and all RHA work­ers to come out in their num­bers and have been do­ing so for quite some time in the lead up to this par­tic­u­lar ac­tion.”

Stu­art out­lined ad­di­tion­al demon­stra­tions for lat­er this month, in­clud­ing in San­gre Grande on Fri­day the 27th and then in Port-of-Spain two Fri­days lat­er. He said the one in the cap­i­tal city will be­gin at the Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal, fol­lowed by a cour­tesy call on the Min­is­ter of Health and a march to the Min­istry of Fi­nance.

“I re­al­ly be­lieve he is not aware that health­care work­ers, re­gion­al health au­thor­i­ty work­ers, nurs­es, mid­wives, doc­tors, at­ten­dants, wards­maids, so­cial work­ers, di­eti­cians, phle­botomists, all of us con­tin­ue to work on 2013 salaries.”

Stu­art added, “I know he’s an ho­n­ourable man. If he knew that bit of in­for­ma­tion, he would have tak­en the nec­es­sary steps to pen a Cab­i­net note to the Cab­i­net, and the Cab­i­net would have ap­proved the pay­ment of salary in­creas­es, and the Min­is­ter of Fi­nance would have al­lo­cat­ed those funds.”

He said the as­so­ci­a­tion is invit­ing not on­ly health­care work­ers but mem­bers of the pub­lic to join the demon­stra­tions. Ac­cord­ing to Stu­art, sev­er­al oth­er unions have al­ready sig­nalled their in­ter­est in sup­port­ing the ac­tion.

Ad­dress­ing con­cerns about the State of Emer­gency, Stu­art said the as­so­ci­a­tion has sought le­gal guid­ance and con­firmed that noth­ing in the procla­ma­tion pre­vents peace­ful protest.

He ref­er­enced Le­gal No­tice No. 39 and Le­gal No­tice No. 40 and said, “Noth­ing is in there to de­ny the peace­ful as­sem­bly of work­ers gath­er­ing to pub­licly high­light our dis­sat­is­fac­tion on be­ing kept on 13-year-old salaries.”

Stu­art said the as­so­ci­a­tion has al­so writ­ten to the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice and the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al seek­ing ap­proval for the planned ac­tions and invit­ing them to in­di­cate any is­sues.

“As of to­day, 3rd of March, at 2.40 pm in the af­ter­noon, no such no­tice have come from the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice, nor from the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al, in­di­cat­ing any is­sue with us tak­ing ac­tion. At this time, no de­nial of our de­mo­c­ra­t­ic right to peace­ful protest has been made known to us.”

He re­ferred to re­marks by Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar at the open­ing of the 50th Reg­u­lar Meet­ing of the Con­fer­ence of Heads of Gov­ern­ment of Cari­com in Bas­seterre, St Kitts, and said the as­so­ci­a­tion is con­fi­dent that democ­ra­cy will be main­tained in Trinidad and To­ba­go.

“The Prime Min­is­ter of Trinidad and To­ba­go has sig­nalled her in­ten­tion to main­tain democ­ra­cy with­in Trinidad and To­ba­go. And there­fore, TTNNA is con­fi­dent that the Prime Min­is­ter is ful­ly aware that democ­ra­cy goes be­yond the mere abil­i­ty to vote for the par­ty of one’s choice every five years, but com­pris­es so much more, in­clu­sive of unions and cit­i­zens en­gag­ing in peace­ful protest ac­tion to high­light is­sues that they may not be in agree­ment with the gov­ern­ment of the day on.”

Stu­art said the as­so­ci­a­tion has en­gaged in peace­ful pub­lic demon­stra­tions over the last 12 years un­der suc­ces­sive ad­min­is­tra­tions and will con­tin­ue to do so.

“Noth­ing, noth­ing will de­bar the as­so­ci­a­tion from con­tin­u­ing our ac­tions un­less we have been for­mal­ly no­ti­fied or some­one mutes our mic.”

He added that the as­so­ci­a­tion does not be­lieve the State of Emer­gency was called to “muz­zle work­ers’ dis­sat­is­fac­tion” but to ad­dress crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty, as out­lined in the Gov­ern­ment’s press re­lease.

Stu­art urged month­ly and dai­ly paid work­ers to at­tend Fri­day’s demon­stra­tion.

“Yes, we have to re-en­gen­der that spir­it of but­lerism… So it’s time to re-ig­nite that, peace­ful­ly and legal­ly, re-ig­nite that spir­it amongst the work­ing class.”