The Joint Trade Union Move­ment (JTUM) has ac­cused the Gov­ern­ment of us­ing Spe­cial Branch po­lice of­fi­cers and the court sys­tem to bul­ly teach­ers.

Trade union lead­ers made the al­le­ga­tion on Wednes­day dur­ing a news con­fer­ence where they stood in sol­i­dar­i­ty with the T&T Uni­fied Teach­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion (TTUTA).

JTUM pres­i­dent gen­er­al An­cel Ro­get ac­cused the Gov­ern­ment of fil­ing Sun­day’s in­junc­tion to not on­ly scare teach­ers but oth­er mem­bers of the pub­lic ser­vice who are be­ing forced to ac­cept the most re­cent wage pro­pos­al of four per cent.

“What we are wit­ness­ing here is a frontal at­tack on the trade union move­ment in this coun­try. A frontal at­tack on any po­si­tion that is con­trary to op­po­si­tion held by the Gov­ern­ment. A frontal at­tack to any voice of con­cern about any­thing that is hap­pen­ing, or any­thing that deals with their own in­ter­ests. Once you stand up for your own in­ter­ests or stand up for what is right in this coun­try to­day, you are at­tacked and vil­i­fied,” Ro­get said.

Ac­cord­ing to Ro­get, the Gov­ern­ment has been util­is­ing tax­pay­ers’ monies and re­sources in or­der to sup­press cit­i­zens. He al­so claimed that the coun­try is be­ing led un­der a form of “dic­ta­tor­ship.”

Ro­get al­so claimed that Spe­cial Branch of­fi­cers were sent to lo­cal schools in or­der to en­sure that teach­ers across the coun­try fol­lowed the court-or­dered call for teach­ers to re­port to work and not par­take in in­dus­tri­al ac­tion on Mon­day.

“This Row­ley Gov­ern­ment, who has full con­trol of the po­lice, us­es the po­lice, used the Spe­cial Branch arm of the po­lice to go to the schools to de­ter­mine who came out or who didn’t come out,” he claimed.

When Guardian Me­dia asked for ev­i­dence of this, Ro­get re­spond­ed claim­ing, “The prin­ci­pals would have re­port­ed that Spe­cial Branch of­fi­cers were present.”

In an in­ter­view with TV6 yes­ter­day, how­ev­er, act­ing Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Mc­Don­ald Ja­cob de­nied of­fi­cers were sent to schools to mon­i­tor teacher at­ten­dance.

Na­tion­al Trade Union Cen­tre (NATUC) gen­er­al sec­re­tary Michael An­nisette claimed that the Gov­ern­ment is in breach of the fun­da­men­tal prin­ci­ples of wage ne­go­ti­a­tion.

He said, “Col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing is be­tween two par­ties. Col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing is not about uni­lat­er­al­ism. Col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing is not about ar­ro­gance. Col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing is not about you do this or else I go to court…The right to col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing is en­shrined in the Con­sti­tu­tion and en­shrined in the ILO con­ven­tion for which this gov­ern­ment is a sig­na­to­ry to.”

He said the trade union move­ment re­jects the four per cent in­crease.