Carisa Lee
Reporter
carisa.Lee@cnc3.co.tt
Seamen and Waterfront Workers Trade Union (SWWTU) president-general Michael Annisette says the People’s National Movement (PNM) defeat in Monday’s General Election was the party paying the “ultimate price” for how they treated workers over the last decade.
“That is something that we could never forget and will never forget. I will say that the PNM allowed themselves and the ordinary members to allow (Keith) Rowley to hijack the PNM,” Annisette said yesterday.
Hours after Kamla Persad-Bissessar’s United National Congress (UNC) Coalition of Interests was declared the winner of the 2025 General Election, Annisette and his members protested along Dock Road, Port-of-Spain.
He said yesterday’s protest was a continuation of their dissatisfaction with the PNM government’s failure to honour the 12 per cent wage negotiation increase agreement between Port Authority and the union for the period 2014-2017.
“We are saying that the government deliberately picked a fight with the SWWTU and, by extension, dockworkers... And the government, which was the PNM government, will pay the ultimate price for so doing. And the ultimate price was yesterday,” he shared.
The PNM-led government did not accept the agreement because the Chief Personnel Officer (CPO), Dr Daryl Dindial, was not involved in the negotiations, he said.
“The PNM, who would have robbed dock workers of their salaries and increases, who would have, when they came into power in 2015, would have said that our negotiations didn’t go through the CPO. We have no agreement with the CPO but with the Port Authority,” he explained.
Last November, the union accelerated its action and downed tools more than once. On November 29, both parties met and Annisette said then that the discussions were fruitful and the proposals outlined in the Memorandum of Agreement were being actively considered.
Annisette highlighted that yesterday’s protest was also to keep the discussion alive.
