Akash Sama­roo

Three more mem­bers of the Joint Trade Union Move­ment (JTUM) have come out in sup­port of its pres­i­dent’s call to vote out the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment even if it means part­ner­ing with the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC).

How­ev­er, the frac­ture with­in JTUM based on that po­si­tion con­tin­ues to spread as an­oth­er mem­ber af­firmed that it would re­main po­lit­i­cal­ly neu­tral.

This frag­men­ta­tion has caught the at­ten­tion of the Gov­ern­ment, with En­er­gy Min­is­ter Stu­art Young telling Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, “What was more telling to me is that the vast ma­jor­i­ty of unions have stat­ed their po­si­tion which is they would not be en­cour­ag­ing their mem­ber­ship one way or the oth­er and they are apo­lit­i­cal.”

So far, the Amal­ga­mat­ed Work­ers Union, the Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Work­ers’ Union and the Trinidad and To­ba­go Uni­fied Teach­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion have all pledged po­lit­i­cal neu­tral­i­ty.

The Bank­ing, In­sur­ance and Gen­er­al Work­ers Union said it had not yet de­cid­ed.

But join­ing the Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion (PSA) and the Oil­field Work­ers’ Trade Union (OW­TU) in their mis­sion to re­move the sit­ting Gov­ern­ment from of­fice are the Fire Ser­vice As­so­ci­a­tion of T&T Sec­ond Di­vi­sion, the Trinidad and To­ba­go Postal Work­ers Union (TTP­WU) and the Trinidad and To­ba­go Farm­ers’ Union (TT­FU).

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia, pres­i­dent of the Fire Ser­vice As­so­ci­a­tion, Keone Guy, said it would sup­port any par­ty against the PNM.

“The as­so­ci­a­tion is def­i­nite­ly in sup­port of any po­lit­i­cal or­gan­i­sa­tion that sup­ports the rights and the in­ter­ests of work­ers. The PNM ad­min­is­tra­tion over the past eight years has demon­strat­ed through its poli­cies and ac­tions that they are in fact against the work­ing class. We at the Fire Ser­vice As­so­ci­a­tion are will­ing to work with any po­lit­i­cal par­ty that has the rights of the work­ers at heart. Even if that par­ty is the UNC, the COP or who­ev­er else ex­ists,” Guy ex­plained.

He added that their pref­er­ence would be any po­lit­i­cal or­gan­i­sa­tion with the ethos of the Move­ment for So­cial Jus­tice (MSJ).

Guy said, “Now we do have our po­lit­i­cal par­ty, that is the Move­ment for So­cial Jus­tice, that in its Labour Day state­ment spoke on the rights of work­ers in the way we would like to see oth­er po­lit­i­cal par­ties speak about work­ers’ rights and in­ter­ests and we sup­port the MSJ. And along­side the MSJ, what­ev­er po­lit­i­cal par­ty demon­strates to have that same sup­port for work­ers’ rights, we will throw our sup­port be­hind them.”

Guy re­vealed his union’s mem­ber­ship stood around 2,000 peo­ple.

Mean­while, the head of the TTP­WU, David Forbes, said the union would throw its sup­port be­hind any pro-work­er po­lit­i­cal par­ty.

Forbes said, “To be con­sis­tent with what the de­ci­sion was at JTUM pri­or to Labour Day, our union would have adopt­ed the same said po­si­tion as an­nounced by the leader of JTUM, An­cel Ro­get, that is to state that any or­gan­i­sa­tion in Trinidad and To­ba­go who is pro-work­ers go­ing in­to the gen­er­al elec­tions in 2025 and any po­lit­i­cal ve­hi­cle that will be car­ry­ing the in­ter­est of work­ers and work­ers’ is­sues will get the sup­port of JTUM.”

Forbes said this de­ci­sion arose from what he called bla­tant PNM ne­glect.

“So that po­si­tion stands, and we are sup­port­ing any po­lit­i­cal ve­hi­cle, with the ex­cep­tion of the PNM, who for the past nine years have not ad­dressed labour leg­is­la­tion and the set­tle­ment of ne­go­ti­a­tions from a fair process of col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing so, there­fore, we are not in sup­port of the PNM at this point in time,” he added.

Shi­raz Khan of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Farm­ers’ Union is al­so sup­port­ing the JTUM pres­i­dent. He said the PNM left them no choice.

“The rea­son why we are sup­port­ing Mr Ro­get on the union’s po­si­tion of ac­cept­ing the UNC to get rid of Row­ley at any cost is the vin­dic­tive­ness that Row­ley has placed on­to the union to try to de­stroy the OW­TU and oth­er unions,” Khan said.

He said, how­ev­er, he re­mem­bered that the labour move­ment was in this same po­si­tion with the Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship ad­min­is­tra­tion.

“So our po­si­tion is that we must be able to have some­thing con­crete with them (the UNC) be­cause re­mem­ber we did sup­port them, we had a mem­o­ran­dum of un­der­stand­ing (MOU). Al­so, with Kei­th Row­ley, we had an MOU with him. So we have to find some way to have con­crete agree­ments, so they (UNC) won’t be­tray us very ear­ly in­to mov­ing in­to of­fice,” he ex­plained.

But the Na­tion­al Nurs­ing As­so­ci­a­tion is stay­ing out of the po­lit­i­cal are­na. Pres­i­dent Idi Stu­art told Guardian Me­dia, “We are stay­ing out of that. Each union is tak­ing a po­si­tion based on what their con­sti­tu­tion al­lows. Our con­sti­tu­tion does not al­low us to sup­port any po­lit­i­cal par­ty so we will be out of that.”

Stu­art said his mem­ber­ship stood at 3,500.

On Thurs­day, Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley said he was not sur­prised by JTUM’s po­si­tion and sought to re­mind them that their part­ner­ship with the UNC failed spec­tac­u­lar­ly in 2010.