The Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment for Cou­va South is promis­ing work­ers in Trinidad and To­ba­go that un­der a UNC Gov­ern­ment, they will fare much bet­ter than they are un­der the cur­rent PNM ad­min­is­tra­tion.

In a state­ment is­sued in ob­ser­vance of In­ter­na­tion­al Work­ers Day (or May Day), Cou­va South MP Rudranath In­dars­ingh—who al­so is a vet­er­an trade union­ist—main­tains that the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) has al­ways been bet­ter for the work­ers of the coun­try, es­pe­cial­ly giv­en the par­ty’s roots “in the rad­i­cal labour move­ment”.

“Un­der the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment, we have seen that there has been a to­tal dis­in­te­gra­tion of the well­be­ing of work­ers and their lives in Trinidad and To­ba­go,” the Cou­va South MP stat­ed. 

“The UNC is Trinidad and To­ba­go's Labour Par­ty, while the PNM has al­ways been our coun­try's an­ti-work­er par­ty,” he de­clared.  “When the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress re­gains pow­er, we will be sure to re­pair the dam­age that the PNM caused. As the par­ty of labour, we will fa­cil­i­tate a tri­par­tite di­a­logue that puts labour at the core and will re-bal­ance the econ­o­my. It will no longer be about the rich get­ting rich­er alone while the rest of the coun­try suf­fers.”

MP In­dars­ingh, who is the Op­po­si­tion’s Shad­ow Min­is­ter for Labour, ar­gues that se­ri­ous in­dus­tri­al ac­ci­dents seem to in­crease when the UNC is not of­fice.

“We must nev­er for­get Fyzal Kur­ban, Kaz­im Ali Jr, Rishi Na­gas­sar and Yusuf Hen­ry who died in the Paria Div­ing Tragedy along with the lone sur­vivor Christo­pher Boodram.  We must not for­get Al­lan­lane Ramkissoon of Ni­Quan, Kern Eti­enne of WASA, Rossi Mans­ingh from the Arcelor Mit­tal steel plant, and the many fire of­fi­cers who were in­jured as a re­sult of faulty equip­ment, the lack of safe­ty wear, and the $1 mil­lion lad­ders fi­as­co,” he re­count­ed. “This PNM gov­ern­ment seems to be ready to watch in­no­cent work­ers die or suf­fer in­jury due to the PNM's com­mit­ment to the par­a­sitic oli­garchy.”

He says the cur­rent gov­ern­ment con­tin­ues to tram­ple on work­ers’ rights, ob­serv­ing: “Both reg­u­lar and con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly en­shrined work­ers are be­ing at­tacked by the PNM ad­min­is­tra­tion.”

Ac­cord­ing to MP In­dars­ingh, the Row­ley Ad­min­is­tra­tion has over­seen the shrink­ing of the mid­dle class and in­creas­ing of “the work­ing poor”.

“The re­al em­ploy­ment sit­u­a­tion and the dec­i­ma­tion of mi­cro en­ter­prise un­der PM Row­ley has cre­at­ed a so­ci­ety that is more un­equal than ever. The cost of liv­ing has gone out of con­trol,” he ar­gues.  “The ris­ing cost of liv­ing, ris­ing cost of util­i­ties, ris­ing cost of food … This gov­ern­ment has suf­fered the work­ers by not set­tling wage ne­go­ti­a­tions in a time­ly man­ner and mak­ing work­ers poor­er.”

The Cou­va South MP al­so lament­ed the break­down of tri­par­tism in T&T, which, he points out, oc­curred un­der the Row­ley Ad­min­is­tra­tion.

“We have seen the col­lapse of the gov­ern­ment-labour part­ner­ship and tri­par­tism in this coun­try. The Na­tion­al Tri­par­tite Ad­vi­so­ry Coun­cil (NTAC) re­mains shaky un­der this an­ti­work­er PNM gov­ern­ment. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, we saw how the PNM gov­ern­ment fooled and used the oil­field work­ers in the OW­TU, by mak­ing false promis­es about the Pointe-a-Pierre re­fin­ery, promis­es that they nev­er meant to keep in the first place.”

MP In­dars­ingh is urg­ing work­ers in this coun­try to con­tin­ue to fight for their rights, and to be en­cour­aged by the mes­sage and spir­it of May Day.

“May Day al­so serves as a re­minder of all the work that has to be done and the im­por­tance of sol­i­dar­i­ty and uni­ty among work­ers,” he said, “as well as a call to ac­tion for con­tin­ued ad­vo­ca­cy for the rights and dig­ni­ty of all labour­ers in Trinidad and To­ba­go and the world at large.”