Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

UNC leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has pledged to pay for­mer Ca­roni pri­vate cane farm­ers the en­tire out­stand­ing sum of $110 mil­lion that was due to them - and she's ques­tion­ing if Gov­ern­ment has sold the Port of Port-of-Spain.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar al­so ac­cused Fi­nance Min­is­ter Vish­nu Dhan­paul of sig­nalling that the Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) "has no in­ten­tion" to pay work­ers back­pay or salary in­crease if re-elect­ed.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar did so at last night's UNC Labour fo­rum in Cou­va.

She said af­ter sev­er­al meet­ings of in­tense di­a­logue with the lead­er­ship of the Joint Trade Union Move­ment (JTUM), Oil­field Work­ers' Trade Union (OW­TU), Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion (PSA), Sea­men and Wa­ter­front Work­ers Trade Union (SWW­TU), Na­tion­al Trade Union Cen­ter (NATUC), and Na­tion­al Union of Gov­ern­ment and Fed­er­al Work­ers (NUGFW), "we've cre­at­ed the UNC’s Work­ers’ Agen­da, which aims to re­store pros­per­i­ty to the work­ing class."

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said, "Has the Gov­ern­ment been en­gaged in ne­go­ti­a­tions to sell the Port of T&T?"

Per­sad-Bisses­sar, who said the "one-day Prime Min­is­ter" was promis­ing house and land, de­tailed the his­to­ry of pay­ments of deeds and funds to for­mer Ca­roni work­ers and the PNM's ac­tions.

She said, "In 2015, my gov­ern­ment promised for­mer Ca­roni pri­vate cane farm­ers a pay­ment of $140 mil­lion as their fi­nal pay­ment to tran­si­tion out of the sug­ar­cane in­dus­try. That mon­ey was to be paid in three tranch­es. My gov­ern­ment made the first pay­ment of $30m be­fore the PNM as­sumed of­fice in 2015. Up­on as­sum­ing of­fice, Row­ley an­nounced not a cent more for cane farm­ers!

"Since 2017 I've led a team of lawyers that have fought in the Mag­is­trate’s Court, High Court and Court of Ap­peal to en­sure this mon­ey was paid to the for­mer cane farm­ers. The PNM Gov­ern­ment, af­ter be­ing tak­en to court, of­fered those cane farm­ers 53 cents on the dol­lar."

She pledged, "The UNC will pay the pri­vate cane farm­ers the en­tire out­stand­ing sum of $110 mil­lion dol­lars due to them. That was our promise. On April 28, God is giv­ing us a chance to keep that promise to pay."

Per­sad-Bisses­sar ac­cused the PNM of push­ing the nar­ra­tive against work­ers.

"De­spite that PNM nar­ra­tive and their ex­cuse that they had no rev­enue, they spent over $ 530 bil­lion, over half a tril­lion dol­lars - more than any oth­er gov­ern­ment in his­to­ry, where did it go, but if you can spend that, it's clear­ly there," she said.

"They have mon­ey for every­thing else be­sides pay­ing work­ers. They spent $530 bil­lion but now com­plain­ing about a new UNC gov­ern­ment pay­ing work­ers $7 bil­lion in back­pay. But if pay­ing work­ers is wrong, I don't want to be right!"

She added, "Their Fi­nance Min­is­ter Dhan­paul is on record in the news­pa­per con­demn­ing the UNC be­cause we want to pay work­ers back­pay and bet­ter wages. This is the same Dhan­paul that was the main ad­vi­sor as PS for Im­bert for the last nine years. He was al­so the high com­mis­sion­er to the UK when the UK im­posed visa re­quire­ments for trav­el.

"Dhan­paul’s pub­lic state­ments con­firms to all work­ers that the PNM has no in­ten­tion to pay any back­pay or any in­crease in salaries if re­elect­ed. Man, if you don't have the mon­ey to pay, get the hell out of there! We'll find the mon­ey, move, leh we pass! Go!

"Take note PNM's Fi­nance Min­is­ter is say­ing noth­ing for work­ers over the next five years."

She said there was still mon­ey to pay work­ers a fair salary and their back­pay.

"It's the PNM who's de­lib­er­ate­ly cho­sen to not pay work­ers and in­stead spend mon­ey to fat­ten their pock­ets..." she said.

Af­ter the PNM put all eggs in "Maduro's bas­ket," she said the UNC would rene­go­ti­ate with all T&T's trad­ing part­ners.

OW­TU pres­i­dent An­cel Ro­get spoke of the UNC’s labour fo­cus, in­clud­ing sim­pli­fy­ing recog­ni­tion of unions, giv­ing more au­thor­i­ty to OSH in­spec­tors, im­prov­ing the Work­men's Com­pen­sa­tion Act, and the Re­trench­ment/Sev­er­ance Ben­e­fits Act.

SWW­TU pres­i­dent Michael An­nisette said the Prime Min­is­ter ac­cept­ed the SRC's salary in­crease while work­ers had to bat­tle dai­ly chal­lenges.

"The time has come for that to change!"

Ex-PSA pres­i­dent Leroy Bap­tiste loud­ly list­ed things that must end, adding Gov­ern­ment gave work­ers four per cent but took 47 per cent.