DA­REECE PO­LO

Se­nior Re­porter

da­reece.po­lo@guardian.co.tt

Trade union lead­ers are di­vid­ed over a call from with­in the labour move­ment for lead­ers to put po­lit­i­cal loy­al­ties aside and stand up for work­ers fac­ing re­trench­ment, stag­nant wages and grow­ing un­cer­tain­ty over their fu­tures.

This fol­lows a warn­ing from Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Work­ers’ Union sec­re­tary gen­er­al Joanne Ogeer, who on Mon­day called for greater uni­ty among trade unions and ques­tioned the si­lence of some labour or­gan­i­sa­tions as work­ers come un­der in­creas­ing pres­sure.

Trinidad and To­ba­go Na­tion­al Nurs­es As­so­ci­a­tion (TTNNA) pres­i­dent Idi Stu­art sup­ports Ogeer’s call. But he says po­lit­i­cal align­ment has al­ready come at a cost for some unions.

Stu­art al­leges that unions which chose not to join the Gov­ern­ment’s Coali­tion of In­ter­est have been neg­a­tive­ly af­fect­ed, in­clud­ing his own as­so­ci­a­tion, which has re­mained po­lit­i­cal­ly non-aligned.

He said that ex­pe­ri­ence has in­flu­enced his de­ci­sion not to seek re-elec­tion as TTNNA pres­i­dent af­ter ten years in of­fice, ar­gu­ing that he does not want his con­tin­ued lead­er­ship to stand in the way of the Gov­ern­ment treat­ing nurs­es and mid­wives fair­ly.

The as­so­ci­a­tion is due to hold elec­tions on Sep­tem­ber 9, with a new ex­ec­u­tive ex­pect­ed to take of­fice from No­vem­ber 1.

Stu­art says the TTNNA has de­lib­er­ate­ly avoid­ed po­lit­i­cal align­ment, al­low­ing it to en­gage whichev­er par­ty is in gov­ern­ment while re­tain­ing the free­dom to chal­lenge poli­cies af­fect­ing its mem­bers.

He said unions that align them­selves with po­lit­i­cal par­ties risk los­ing that in­de­pen­dence.

“It comes with risk that you would not be able to speak out. It comes with risk that you would not want to alien­ate that po­lit­i­cal par­ty,” Stu­art said yes­ter­day.

Stu­art said the risks are no longer the­o­ret­i­cal.

“Unions who did not toe the line and still con­tin­ue to refuse to toe the line or con­tin­ue to speak out on is­sues would be neg­a­tive­ly af­fect­ed. I could even say in the best in­ter­est of my own union, I have de­cid­ed not even to go back up for re-elec­tion. We have elec­tions com­ing up in Sep­tem­ber. And I be­lieve that my union is cur­rent­ly be­ing vic­timised in a num­ber of ways be­cause we did not open­ly sup­port any po­lit­i­cal par­ty.”

Stu­art al­so de­scribed the cur­rent en­vi­ron­ment as “treach­er­ous” for unions that re­main po­lit­i­cal­ly in­de­pen­dent and called for greater sol­i­dar­i­ty across the labour move­ment.

T&T Postal Work­ers’ Union (TTP­WU) gen­er­al sec­re­tary David Forbes, mean­while, has tak­en a more cau­tious po­si­tion, say­ing he can­not speak on be­half of oth­er unions and does not want to be drawn in­to the po­lit­i­cal di­men­sion of Ogeer’s com­ments.

Forbes said the TTP­WU con­tin­ued to rep­re­sent its mem­bers through ne­go­ti­a­tions, the Min­istry of Labour and the In­dus­tri­al Court, while ad­her­ing to es­tab­lished in­dus­tri­al re­la­tions prin­ci­ples and trade union leg­is­la­tion.

He al­so point­ed to the wider Joint Trade Union Move­ment, say­ing unions con­tin­ued to meet and ad­dress is­sues af­fect­ing work­ers, in­clud­ing labour leg­is­la­tion.

Forbes cit­ed the Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion’s re­cent in­dus­tri­al ac­tion as an ex­am­ple of a union with­in the Gov­ern­ment’s Coali­tion of In­ter­est still rais­ing is­sues af­fect­ing its mem­bers.

“It is known that the Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion is part of the Coali­tion of In­ter­ests. But in the Coali­tion of In­ter­ests, and just like in any gov­ern­ment here, you will have opin­ions on things that need to be worked out. Where there is is­sues af­fect­ing work­ers, the PSA will speak out, right? And I will say, if I have an is­sue at TTPost, I will say that as well.”

Forbes al­so de­fend­ed the in­volve­ment of trade union lead­ers in pol­i­tics, ar­gu­ing that this re­la­tion­ship is not new.

“Labour lead­ers who en­tered in­to the po­lit­i­cal sphere, why? To look in­to the in­ter­ests of work­ers, right? You would have had (for­mer prime min­is­ter) Bas­deo Pan­day, you had (for­mer labour min­is­ter) Jen­nifer Bap­tiste-Primus. You had a num­ber of per­sons who came out of labour and went in­to gov­ern­ment, right, to seek the best in­ter­ests of the work­ers. And I’m not see­ing any dif­fer­ence here now.”

Forbes stopped short of en­dors­ing Stu­art’s al­le­ga­tion that the Gov­ern­ment was tar­get­ing unions that dis­agreed with its poli­cies.

In­stead, he said dis­agree­ments be­tween unions and gov­ern­ments could be ad­dressed through es­tab­lished le­gal and in­dus­tri­al re­la­tions process­es.

Health­care work­ers

warn of break­ing point

The de­bate comes as unions con­front broad­er con­cerns over work­ers’ eco­nom­ic se­cu­ri­ty.

For the TTNNA pres­i­dent, the pres­sure is par­tic­u­lar­ly acute in the health­care sec­tor. He said nurs­es and mid­wives re­main on salaries dat­ing back to 2013 and warns that the im­pend­ing bud­get could be­come a ma­jor flash­point if health­care work­ers do not re­ceive a salary in­crease.

“If none ma­te­ri­alis­es, I could see se­vere, se­vere dis­rup­tion with­in the health­care sys­tem be­cause health­care work­ers would not tol­er­ate go­ing in­to 2027 with this non-in­crease con­tin­u­ing for much longer. It would not con­tin­ue,” Stu­art said.

Stu­art said the sen­ti­ment among health­care work­ers was that “some­thing must give,” al­though he stressed that any ac­tion would re­main with­in the law.

How­ev­er, he said his im­pend­ing de­par­ture from the TTNNA lead­er­ship will not mean an ex­it from the labour move­ment.