The Joint Trade Union Move­ment (JTUM) re­turned to Fyz­abad yes­ter­day with An­cel Ro­get de­clar­ing vic­to­ry in labour’s long strug­gle to re­move the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) from gov­ern­ment. Stand­ing on the JTUM plat­form at Char­lie King Junc­tion, the Oil­fields Work­ers’ Trade Union (OW­TU) Pres­i­dent Gen­er­al called on the new ad­min­is­tra­tion to now claw back the 47 per cent salary in­crease grant­ed to for­mer prime min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley, which al­lows him to re­ceive a $1 mil­lion pen­sion.

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar lat­er joined hun­dreds of union­ists who had ear­li­er braved the per­sis­tent driz­zle and grey skies yes­ter­day, tak­ing shel­ter un­der um­brel­las or proud­ly walk­ing through the rain, as they as­sem­bled at Av­o­cat Junc­tion for the Labour Day march. The pro­ces­sion, swelling in num­bers com­pared to pre­vi­ous years, moved along Fyz­abad Road to­ward Char­lie King Junc­tion—puls­ing with the beat of drums and chants for jus­tice.

It was more than just an­oth­er ral­ly. It was a state­ment. Union mem­bers waved co­coyea brooms in open mock­ery of the PNM’s elec­tion song Sweep­ing Time. A crick­et bat la­belled UNC knocked a ball marked PNM, sym­bol­is­ing a clean po­lit­i­cal dis­missal. Bell men, moko jumbies, and flag bear­ers added Car­ni­val-like en­er­gy to a march laced with both satire and se­ri­ous­ness.

The move­ment drew strength from a wide cross-sec­tion of civ­il so­ci­ety. Among the marchers were Scrap Iron Deal­ers As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent Al­lan Fer­gu­son, Fyz­abad Cham­ber pres­i­dent An­janie Jairam, New Na­tion­al Vi­sion po­lit­i­cal leader Fuad Abu Bakr, and Pa­tri­ot­ic Front leader Mick­ela Pan­day. They were joined by Gov­ern­ment min­is­ters Dr Roodal Mooni­lal, Dav­en­dranath Tan­coo, Ravi Rati­ram, Dr Michael Dowlat and Dr Lack­ram Bo­doe among oth­ers.

On stage, Ro­get re­mind­ed sup­port­ers of the long fight to de­feat the PNM, which he claimed gov­erned with con­tempt for work­ers.

“Whilst they shame­less­ly gave them­selves a 47 per cent salary in­crease with hefty pen­sion ben­e­fits, they im­posed on work­ers the most un­just four per cent over six years, with­out con­sol­i­da­tion of CO­LA,” he said.

He claimed that un­der the PNM, thou­sands of work­ers were re­trenched and forced in­to fi­nan­cial de­spair.

“It was nine years of pure hell un­der the PNM gov­ern­ment. That is how much they care,” he de­clared.

Ro­get then turned his at­ten­tion to the cab­i­net note signed off by Row­ley that al­lowed for his pen­sion and salary in­creas­es just be­fore leav­ing of­fice.

“You see that 47 per cent Row­ley gave him­self and the in­crease in pen­sion for Stu­art Young, we have to find a way to take that back from them. They did not even work for four per cent, but gave them­selves 47 per cent.”

The Gov­ern­ment has al­ready tabled leg­is­la­tion called the Prime Min­is­ter’s Pen­sion (Amend­ment) Act which would on­ly al­low prime min­is­ters who served a year and up in of­fice to re­ceive pen­sion ben­e­fits.

So far the on­ly for­mer prime min­is­ter who did not serve a year in of­fice is Stu­art Young. He served from March 17 to April 28.

Ro­get claimed the PNM was still at­tempt­ing to stymie new gov­er­nance, ac­cus­ing some of its ap­pointees on State boards of de­lib­er­ate­ly stalling the Gov­ern­ment’s op­er­a­tions.

Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion Pres­i­dent Fe­l­isha Thomas picked up the ba­ton, claim­ing the PNM’s hypocrisy was on full dis­play in Par­lia­ment when its MPs ques­tioned the new gov­ern­ment’s promised 10 per cent wage in­crease for pub­lic ser­vants.

“Com­rades, tell them to stay out of work­ers’ busi­ness. They did not care for the last 10 years, so do not pre­tend to care now,” Thomas said.

She ar­gued that the PNM was bank­ing on pub­lic dis­sat­is­fac­tion to cre­ate fric­tion be­tween work­ers and the new ad­min­is­tra­tion, but she re­mained op­ti­mistic ask­ing how could the Gov­ern­ment pay 10 per cent on a bud­get that catered for 4 per cent.

“So com­rades, we ex­pect that in the Sep­tem­ber/Oc­to­ber bud­get, 10 per cent will be com­ing our way.”

She al­so called on work­ers to up­hold high pro­duc­tiv­i­ty and dis­ci­pline to sup­port na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment, say­ing the days of work­er vic­tim­i­sa­tion were over.

Thomas cred­it­ed the UNC-led Gov­ern­ment with al­ready sav­ing an es­ti­mat­ed 10,000 jobs since com­ing in­to of­fice.