What was ad­ver­tised as a can­dle­light vig­il start­ed as a full-on protest yes­ter­day with port and T&TEC work­ers clam­our­ing for high­er wages and bet­ter work­ing con­di­tions.

Plac­ards in hand and ac­com­pa­nied by a rhythm sec­tion, al­most 100 mem­bers of the Sea­men and Wa­ter­front Work­ers Trade Union (SWW­TU), Oil­fields Work­ers’ Trade Union (OW­TU), T&T Postal Work­ers Union (TTP­WU) and the Avi­a­tion, Com­mu­ni­ca­tion and Al­lied Work­ers Union (ACAWU), as­sem­bled on Dock Road, Port-of-Spain, to press their de­mands for high­er wages.

Yes­ter­day’s ac­tiv­i­ty came af­ter more than a month of in­dus­tri­al ac­tion led by SWW­TU, which end­ed last week af­ter an In­dus­tri­al Court in­junc­tion or­dered port work­ers back to work.

How­ev­er, OW­TU pres­i­dent gen­er­al An­cel Ro­get stressed that the work­ers were not par­tic­i­pat­ing in in­dus­tri­al ac­tion.

“The ac­tion here this evening is not in­dus­tri­al ac­tion. I want to make that point re­peat­ed­ly. It is not in­dus­tri­al ac­tion. It is ac­tion on the part of the work­ers to ex­press their pro­found dis­sat­is­fac­tion with the way in which their is­sues are be­ing treat­ed.

“There are sev­er­al is­sues with T&TEC work­ers rel­a­tive to cor­rup­tion and rel­a­tive to con­trac­tors tak­ing away the jobs and job func­tions of the work­ers. Then you have a sit­u­a­tion where re­tirees are brought back in­to the sys­tem, all of that cre­at­ing a melt­ing pot of cor­rup­tion at T&TEC. This is what the man­age­ment don’t want the pub­lic to hear,” he said.

SWW­TU pres­i­dent gen­er­al Michael An­nisette crit­i­cised the gov­ern­ment and Port Au­thor­i­ty for not ad­her­ing to con­di­tions promised to work­ers.

He said, “We can­not con­tin­ue in a so­ci­ety where­by work­ers are still liv­ing on 2014 salaries. We are not go­ing to ac­cept a four per cent over a six-year pe­ri­od. It is un­fair to work­ers. We are stand­ing up for a bet­ter port and a bet­ter T&TEC.

“We will con­tin­ue to ar­gue that the agree­ment that we signed wasn’t an agree­ment for a 12 per cent. The agree­ment that we signed was to have a com­pet­i­tive, trans­for­ma­tion­al port that will be able to com­pete ef­fi­cient­ly in Trinidad and To­ba­go and the re­gion. “When oil and wa­ter meet, we know what that means in Trinidad and To­ba­go and there­fore the mes­sage is clear, I tell the dock work­ers stand firm and stand strong. I call on the T&TEC work­ers nev­er give up, nev­er sur­ren­der.”

Brav­ing some rain­fall, the dis­grun­tled work­ers lit can­dles and walked from Dock Road to Ben­bow Road, Port-of-Spain.