Da­reece Po­lo

Se­nior Re­porter

da­reece.po­lo@guardian.co.tt

The Joint Trade Union Move­ment (JTUM) is ac­cus­ing the gov­ern­ment of at­tempt­ing to block Labour Day cel­e­bra­tions through the Min­istry of Works and Trans­port (MOWT).

JTUM leader An­cel Ro­get made the al­le­ga­tion dur­ing a pre-Labour Day me­dia con­fer­ence yes­ter­day at the head of­fice of the Bank­ing and In­sur­ance Gen­er­al Work­ers Union (BIG­WU) in Barataria. Ac­cord­ing to Ro­get, the MOWT has start­ed works di­rect­ly in front of Char­lie King Junc­tion, Fyz­abad, where JTUM’s stage will be erect­ed.

“That could on­ly come about by the vin­dic­tive na­ture of a Kei­th Row­ley gov­ern­ment. We have nev­er seen that be­fore. We didn’t see it with the gov­ern­ment be­fore that, and the one be­fore that, and the one be­fore that,” he said.

“But that and God face – they could dig a hole, they could dig a trench, they could jump in the trench – we will have our Labour Day cel­e­bra­tions. So, this Mr Min­is­ter of Works, all of those ma­jor equip­ment you in­tend to put in front of our stage in Fyz­abad on June 19, think again.”

Cel­e­brat­ed an­nu­al­ly on June 19, Labour Day marks the an­niver­sary of the 1937 But­ler Oil­field Ri­ots. But­ler’s protests de­mand­ed change for the av­er­age cit­i­zen’s work­ing con­di­tions. How­ev­er, at­tempts to ar­rest him dur­ing the sit-down strike led to ri­ots – 14 peo­ple were killed, 59 wound­ed and hun­dreds de­tained.

At last year’s Labour Day ob­ser­vances a mo­tion of no con­fi­dence was sym­bol­i­cal­ly passed against Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley. This time around, Ro­get re­fused to let the cat out of the bag per­tain­ing to plans for the event. In­stead, he gave a break­down of what Labour Day ac­tiv­i­ties, held un­der the theme, Peo­ple Pow­er, Peo­ple Mat­ter, will en­tail.

He said two speech­es will be de­liv­ered along with an in­fu­sion of cul­tur­al ac­tiv­i­ties for the first time.

Ac­cord­ing to the JTUM leader, the top­ics will fo­cus on the gov­ern­ment, ris­ing in­equal­i­ty, a failed en­er­gy sec­tor – in­clud­ing the so­cial, eco­nom­ic and en­vi­ron­men­tal con­se­quences of the clo­sure of Petrotrin – the Paria in­quiry, pri­vati­sa­tion of T&TEC, NP, WASA, BIR, Cus­toms, SWM­COL, TTPOST, PTSC, the Port of Port-of-Spain, Port of Scar­bor­ough, city and re­gion­al cor­po­ra­tions, and lake as­phalt.

Speak­ers will al­so dis­cuss the so-called dis­man­tling of col­lec­tive agree­ments and the gov­ern­ment’s fail­ure to of­fer per­ma­nent em­ploy­ment to the pub­lic.

As is cus­tom­ary, the event will be­gin with a wreath-lay­ing cer­e­mo­ny at the tomb of Tubal Uri­ah “Buzz” But­ler in Fyz­abad and oth­er no­table lead­ers. Trade union mem­bers will then march from Av­o­cat Junc­tion to Char­lie King Junc­tion.

Iw­er George and a slate of un­named ca­lyp­so­ni­ans will per­form.

Al­so speak­ing at the con­fer­ence was the leader of the Na­tion­al Trade Union Cen­tre (NATUC), Michael An­nisette, who lament­ed the is­sue of crime, agree­ing with Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley last week, that the ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem is push­ing young peo­ple to­ward crim­i­nal­i­ty.

“Our ed­u­ca­tion­al sys­tem is breed­ing, is breed­ing a fac­tor of crim­i­nals be­cause our ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem is not root­ed in our re­al­i­ties and our his­to­ry and our an­tecedent as a peo­ple,” he said.

Speak­ing with mem­bers of the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty at Break­fast with the Prime Min­is­ter at the Hilton Trinidad in Port-of-Spain on May 31, Dr Row­ley blamed the sec­ondary school sys­tem for churn­ing out young, un­e­d­u­cat­ed gang mem­bers. He al­so scold­ed par­ents, call­ing on them to be more re­spon­si­ble for their chil­dren.