sto­ries by KEVON FELMINE

Se­nior Re­porter

kevon.felmine@ guardian.co.tt

The Joint Trade Union Move­ment (JTUM) an­nounced yes­ter­day that it will work with the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) and oth­er po­lit­i­cal forces to re­move the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) from pow­er.

“Row­ley must go,” chant­ed trade union­ists gath­ered at Char­lie King Junc­tion, Fyz­abad, for the 86th Labour Day cel­e­bra­tions yes­ter­day.

JTUM pres­i­dent gen­er­al An­cel Ro­get said the pur­pose was not to form a po­lit­i­cal par­ty but to build a Na­tion­al Front Al­liance to re­move the PNM from of­fice at the next gen­er­al elec­tion. He urged union mem­bers to unite and be ready.

Al­though the Pub­lic Ser­vice As­so­ci­a­tion (PSA) en­dorsed the UNC as the next gov­ern­ment, Ro­get said the labour move­ment al­ready has a par­ty, the Move­ment for So­cial Jus­tice.

He said: “This af­ter­noon, on be­half of the trade union move­ment, I wish to an­nounce right here in Fyz­abad at this his­toric Char­lie King Junc­tion that in the com­ing weeks, with the ex­cep­tion of TTUTA and any oth­er apo­lit­i­cal trade union, we have agreed to meet with all op­pos­ing forces and po­lit­i­cal par­ties, in­clud­ing the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress.

“We will be meet­ing with all who are op­posed to this scan­dal of cor­rup­tion and mal-gov­er­nance of the PNM.”

Ro­get said Labour Day 2024 was one of the most cru­cial com­mem­o­ra­tions ever and com­pared it to June 19, 1937. He said all the achieve­ments earned over the years were be­ing rolled back or tak­en away.

“Labour Day 2024 comes at a time when our coun­try is in deep cri­sis and fac­ing its dark­est hour since In­de­pen­dence,” he said.

Giv­ing his take on the PNM’s nine years in of­fice, Roger said the Row­ley ad­min­is­tra­tion over­saw the clo­sure of the Arcelor­Mit­tal steel plant and Tourism De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny and the dec­i­ma­tion of Telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions Ser­vices.

He added that since the shut­ting down of Petrotrin in 2018, T&T no longer pro­duces gaso­line and many oth­er fu­els, many pri­vate en­ter­pris­es have closed and thou­sands of work­ers are los­ing their jobs un­der the guise of re­struc­tur­ing in gov­ern­ment and pri­vate en­ter­pris­es.

Roger fur­ther ac­cused the Gov­ern­ment of try­ing to fool the pop­u­la­tion by say­ing it saved the coun­try from an In­ter­na­tion­al Mon­e­tary Fund pro­gramme when it had al­ready im­posed aus­tere con­di­tions on cit­i­zens.

While crime is a crit­i­cal is­sue, the JTUM leader said the PNM wants the pop­u­la­tion to for­get that a gov­ern­ment’s pri­ma­ry re­spon­si­bil­i­ty is to se­cure its cit­i­zens. In­stead, it blames every­one else for the high rate of crime and mur­ders and has not been able to pre­vent the in­flux of il­le­gal drugs and mi­gra­tion.

Ro­get claimed there has been an ex­po­nen­tial in­crease in il­le­gal im­mi­grants since 2015.

“To­day there are more mur­ders than ever in the his­to­ry of this coun­try. For on­ly six months of this year, 256 of our cit­i­zens have been bru­tal­ly mur­dered. It means that un­der Row­ley and the PNM, 4,409 peo­ple have been mur­dered since they came in­to of­fice,” he said.

Ro­get said it was now time to fire Row­ley and the PNM and he told trade union­ists at the Labour Day ral­ly that their task was to con­vince peo­ple that giv­ing Row­ley and the PNM an­oth­er term would con­demn their chil­dren and grand­chil­dren to a life of pover­ty and des­ti­tu­tion.

He pre­dict­ed that an­oth­er five years un­der the PNM would mean more clo­sure of state en­ter­pris­es and cor­rup­tion.