Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, who made his­to­ry in 2010 as T&T’s first fe­male Prime Min­is­ter, had an­oth­er mo­men­tous mo­ment yes­ter­day—stand­ing on the Joint Trade Union Move­ment’s (JTUM) Labour Day plat­form at Char­lie King Junc­tion in Fyz­abad.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar brought a mes­sage of hope, an­nounc­ing that she had tak­en a Cab­i­net Note to es­tab­lish a com­mit­tee to as­sess the Guaracara Re­fin­ing Com­pa­ny, to re­open the re­fin­ery.

It marked a strik­ing change in tone at Labour Day cel­e­bra­tions, where trade unions had for years lam­bast­ed the pre­vi­ous ad­min­is­tra­tion for the clo­sure of the Pointe-a-Pierre re­fin­ery. This year, how­ev­er, she of­fered re­as­sur­ance, re­mind­ing work­ers that her Gov­ern­ment had al­ready be­gun ful­fill­ing cam­paign promis­es.

She said her ad­min­is­tra­tion was com­mit­ted to ex­plor­ing op­tions to restart op­er­a­tions at Guaracara and had agreed to set up a com­mit­tee to de­vise a strat­e­gy for re­ac­ti­va­tion. The com­mit­tee, she said, would in­clude labour rep­re­sen­ta­tives and oth­er ex­perts.

“We must as­sess what re­mains be­fore mov­ing for­ward,” Per­sad-Bisses­sar said. “Good things come to those who wait.”

She con­tin­ued: “I give you the com­mit­ment that we will re­con­sid­er and con­sid­er... The in­tent is, as I dis­cussed with com­rade Ro­get, for us to put the com­mit­tee in place as soon as pos­si­ble to give us a re­port with­in two months—at least an in­ter­im re­port—to guide the Gov­ern­ment for­ward.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar told the crowd of en­thu­si­as­tic union­ists that her work­ing-class roots al­lowed her to un­der­stand the strug­gles of or­di­nary cit­i­zens, say­ing that she was not a mem­ber of the one per cent.

As a south­ern­er, she re­called how, while trav­el­ling along the Solomon Ho­choy High­way, the glow of the re­fin­ery once sig­nalled that she was near home.

She said the light was now gone and she urged work­ers to re­mem­ber who ex­tin­guished it, blam­ing the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) for clos­ing one of the world’s old­est and most rep­utable oil re­finer­ies and send­ing 5,000 work­ers on­to the bread­line.

“And then they want to know why they lost Point Fortin and La Brea. Be­cause their own peo­ple—who they rep­re­sent­ed for all those years—had their throats cut. Those were the seats that de­pend­ed on Petrotrin.”

In re­sponse to Na­tion­al Trade Union Cen­tre (NATUC) Pres­i­dent Michael An­nisette’s call for work­er rep­re­sen­ta­tion on State boards, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said her ad­min­is­tra­tion had al­ready be­gun ap­point­ing labour move­ment rep­re­sen­ta­tives.

“Maybe you think it is tak­ing too long, but you know the sto­ry, Rome was not built in a day. We are work­ing on it. Right now, we are still deal­ing with 18 more boards, where we are en­sur­ing we place labour reps on every board we can. I have asked my Min­is­ter of Labour to help co­or­di­nate the li­ai­son with the labour move­ment to en­sure that none is left out.”

As she praised the trade union move­ment for its role in ush­er­ing in po­lit­i­cal change, Per­sad-Bisses­sar crit­i­cised the for­mer gov­ern­ment, ac­cus­ing it of en­rich­ing it­self while of­fer­ing work­ers on­ly a 4 per cent in­crease.

“While they ac­cuse you of wrong­do­ing, re­mem­ber they are do­ing worse than you can imag­ine.”

Af­ter strik­ing a pose with a fist pump with trade union lead­ers, the Prime Min­is­ter re­mind­ed work­ers that one hand does not clap.

“If you work with me, if you take my hand and we walk to­geth­er, I will keep my com­mit­ment to the work­ers’ agen­da.”