The T&T Scrap Iron Deal­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion and Joint Trade Union Move­ment (JTUM) are dis­tanc­ing them­selves from a protest which blocked the north­bound lane of the Solomon Ho­choy High­way yes­ter­day, strand­ing thou­sands in traf­fic for hours.

Short­ly af­ter the ac­tion, Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley ac­cused the trade unions and op­po­si­tion of be­ing con­spir­a­tors.

“So they have made their move. Dump truck­loads of sand and de­bris on both sides of the high­way and block traf­fic! What a won­der­ful idea of lead­er­ship from Ro­get and the fol­low­ers, in­clud­ing the UNC! The ma­raud­ing gangs of met­al thieves threat­ened to, but did not com­plete the job of shut­ting down the coun­try, so the lead­ers are help­ing them to get that done,” he said on his Face­book page.

How­ev­er, speak­ing at a press con­fer­ence, JTUM rep­re­sen­ta­tive Tim­o­thy Bai­ley dis­tanced the union from the protest.

“Our po­si­tion is very clear. We con­demn those al­le­ga­tions made. What we have seen this morn­ing is an emo­tion­al and re­ac­tive re­sponse by in­di­vid­u­als who are hurt­ing. We un­der­stand it as trade union lead­ers,” he said.

He al­so asked the Prime Min­is­ter to re­frain from mak­ing such ac­cu­sa­tions.

“We would ask that the Ho­n­ourable Prime Min­is­ter of Trinidad and To­ba­go take a re­spon­si­ble po­si­tion. Not one that is emo­tion­al, not one that is reck­less, not one that is re­ac­tive and not one that is ir­re­spon­si­ble by ba­si­cal­ly in­clud­ing and tar­nish­ing the name of the leader of the Joint Trade Union Move­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go and the trade union move­ment,” he said.

TTSI­DA pres­i­dent, Al­lan Fer­gu­son al­so con­demned the ac­tion and dis­tanced his as­so­ci­a­tion from any in­volve­ment, not­ing it had un­doubt­ed­ly added fu­el to the al­ready grow­ing neg­a­tive per­cep­tion of the in­dus­try. He said he does not sup­port any ac­tion to shut down the coun­try nor would he join hands with any oth­er ag­griev­ed en­ti­ties to do it, as the PM claimed.

“If the trade unions have they grouse against you, that’s them. Our thing is about the poor peo­ple, the work­ers, that’s our thing. I am not on no oth­er thing but to try to get back our in­dus­try and to help poor peo­ple and to help work­ers. That is my thing. I am not on no fool­ish­ness Mr Prime Min­is­ter,” he said.

“When I or­gan­ise any­thing, it have to be peace­ful. I don’t have no evil­ness in my mind like oth­er peo­ple. I have an in­dus­try to fight for.”

Fer­gu­son said the TTSI­DA will be or­gan­is­ing an­oth­er mo­tor­cade on Fri­day to peace­ful­ly protest the six-month ban on scrap iron ex­ports.