Joshua Seemu­n­gal

As the ten­sion be­tween the labour move­ment and the Gov­ern­ment over pub­lic sec­tor salary ne­go­ti­a­tions con­tin­ues to build, Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley wad­ed in­to Na­tion­al Trade Union Cen­tre gen­er­al sec­re­tary Michael An­nisette on so­cial me­dia yes­ter­day.

In a Face­book post yes­ter­day morn­ing, Row­ley re­ject­ed An­nisette’s crit­i­cisms of him­self and the Gov­ern­ment, ask­ing the pres­i­dent gen­er­al of the Sea­men and Wa­ter­front Work­ers’ Trade Union what he had done to de­serve the dis­re­spect from the unions and the ac­cu­sa­tions that he doesn’t care about the coun­try’s women and chil­dren.

The Prime Min­is­ter in­sist­ed that he al­ways puts the na­tion­al in­ter­est first, un­like oth­ers who have a job to pro­vide the best rep­re­sen­ta­tion of the peo­ple they lead.

“I no­tice that in car­ry­ing out your ad­vo­ca­cy, you have cho­sen to ac­cuse me of be­ing dis­re­spect­ful and not car­ing about women and chil­dren. What have I ever done to cause you, of all peo­ple, to make such ac­cu­sa­tions against me?” the PM said.

“I am the on­ly Prime Min­is­ter of this coun­try who ever ap­peared be­fore a Par­lia­men­tary Com­mit­tee as a wit­ness in the pub­lic in­ter­est. I did that be­cause I am re­spect­ful of my oath and my re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to all the cit­i­zens of this coun­try,” Row­ley said.

“In­ci­den­tal­ly, dur­ing that same Par­lia­men­tary en­quiry, which in­volved the port, a woman, hav­ing writ­ten to me, came be­fore the com­mit­tee and gave her ag­griev­ed tes­ti­mo­ny, in cam­era, to the com­mit­tee, chaired by Franklin Khan. She was a re­cent­ly dis­missed em­ploy­ee of the union that you lead.”

Row­ley asked An­nisette if he ever cared enough to re­spond to the woman’s tes­ti­mo­ny if he cared so much about women and their chil­dren.

“In case you have lost the time­line, let me re­fresh your mem­o­ry. It was at the same time that you were lead­ing march­es up to An­gos­tu­ra to make de­mands that Rolph Bal­go­b­in must go be­cause he was ac­cused by a woman,” the Prime Min­is­ter said, ad­dress­ing An­nisette.

“I am avail­able for a pub­lic dis­cus­sion on car­ing and re­spect for women. Would you be in­ter­est­ed?”

The PM al­so not­ed that the four per cent of­fer from Gov­ern­ment was on the ta­ble for all pub­lic sec­tor work­ers.

“In­ci­den­tal­ly, the African an­ces­tors to whom you ap­peal, are al­so my an­ces­tors and there is no 4% of­fered to black and African peo­ple. That of­fer ap­plies to all the pub­lic of­fi­cers for whom the CPO is their em­ploy­er, of all races, class­es and creeds,” Row­ley said.

When con­tact­ed for com­ment yes­ter­day, An­nisette said his ap­proach to life is to be in­dif­fer­ent to any­thing or any per­son who makes no dif­fer­ence to him.

He would not ad­dress the is­sue of a for­mer union em­ploy­ee raised by the PM but said he would not be di­vert­ed from his cur­rent cause.

“The trade union move­ment is not to be di­vert­ed from our goal and in­ten­tion—which is so­cial jus­tice and the right for gov­ern­ment em­ploy­ees to be paid de­cent and liv­ing wages,” An­nisette said dur­ing a tele­phone in­ter­view.

“If he has time to talk about me on his so­cial page, it means I’m do­ing some­thing right. And with all the crime and all the in­sti­tu­tions that are falling down around us, if you could spend time on Michael An­nisette, well, you know some­thing has to be wrong.”

An­nisette said the coun­try is an alarm­ing and fright­en­ing state, adding this state was a re­flec­tion of the Gov­ern­ment’s lead­er­ship.

He de­scribed the crime rate as be­ing out of con­trol.

“Crime is a peo­ple’s is­sue and if you don’t em­brace peo­ple, and if you have to dis­agree with every­body who has a dif­fer­ent opin­ion about what you say or do, that they be­come a vil­lain in so­ci­ety, we can’t move for­ward,” he said.

“They (the gov­ern­ment) are not talk­ing with the peo­ple. They are talk­ing to the peo­ple, and crime is a so­cial prob­lem that em­braces every­body. Peo­ple are not born crim­i­nals and we have to get to the root cause of crime.”

Last Fri­day, labour lead­ers marched through the streets of Port-of-Spain in protest against the Gov­ern­ment’s con­tin­ued of­fer of a four per cent salary in­crease to pub­lic sec­tor work­ers for the pe­ri­od 2014 to 2021.

In May, Prime Min­is­ter Row­ley claimed dur­ing a po­lit­i­cal meet­ing in Ari­ma that a pub­lic sec­tor salary in­crease of four per cent would cost the state ap­prox­i­mate­ly $1.45 bil­lion in back pay.