SASCHA WIL­SON

As trade unions marched through the streets of San Fer­nan­do in ob­ser­vance of May Day/In­ter­na­tion­al Work­ers Day cel­e­bra­tions, they sent a strong mes­sage to the gov­ern­ment and em­ploy­ers that they will be fight­ing back against in­jus­tices to work­ers, and by ex­ten­sion, the coun­try.

Trade Union mem­bers from var­i­ous bod­ies came out in their num­bers to be part of the cel­e­bra­tion, which was held for the first time since the pan­dem­ic struck two years ago.

Ad­dress­ing the gath­er­ing briefly be­fore em­bark­ing on the pro­ces­sion at OW­TU's head­quar­ters in San Fer­nan­do, leader of the Joint Trade Union Move­ment An­cel Ro­get promised to res­cue the coun­try which he said is in "deep trou­ble".

"Trinidad and To­ba­go is not what it used to be,” Ro­get said.  “Trinidad and To­ba­go is in deep trou­ble and there are some of us who be­lieve not on­ly that it is not right… We are not pre­pared to ac­cept the fact that Trinidad is in deep trou­ble."

He said those gath­ered were there to do some­thing about it.

"We are here to res­cue Trinidad and To­ba­go."

Not­ing that the unions were un­able to march through the streets for some time, Ro­get said they [Gov­ern­ment and em­ploy­ers] have tak­en ad­van­tage of the fact that there was COVID-19 and they were "hap­py to lock us down and en­sure we can­not be on the streets."

He added: “Even if I have to walk bare­foot through the streets to tell them they are do­ing wrong, I am pre­pared to do that.”

In a brief ad­dress, Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary of the Bank­ing, In­sur­ance and Gen­er­al Work­ers Union, Trevor John­son, said T&T has a se­ri­ous pan­dem­ic, which is not COVID-19, but that every in­sti­tu­tion in the coun­try that sup­posed to rep­re­sent labour has been com­pro­mised.  He said this is ev­i­dent by the re­cent In­dus­tri­al Court judg­ment of ‘ze­ro, ze­ro, ze­ro per­cent’, a silent Labour Min­is­ter, re­trench­ment of work­ers, fu­el prices and oth­er is­sues.

"The vac­cine for our pan­dem­ic is for us to put feet on the street all over Trinidad and To­ba­go," John­son de­clared.

He called on em­ploy­ers to "fix your busi­ness be­fore Labour Day be­cause the Joint Trade Union Move­ment is pre­pared to act.”

"We have head. Enough is Enough and we will act if you don't fix your busi­ness now," he stat­ed.

Move­ment for So­cial Jus­tice leader, David Ab­du­lah, said the bat­tle lines have been drawn with those who want work­ers to con­tin­ue to be ex­ploit­ed on one side, and those who want a dif­fer­ent T&T with so­cial jus­tice on the oth­er side.  Ab­du­lah called on work­ers to unite and con­tin­ue to fight against in­jus­tices.

Mean­while, the Fire Ser­vice As­so­ci­a­tion’s deputy trea­sur­er, De­neen Mo­hammed, re­vealed at least one-third of the fire sta­tions in this coun­try are un­able to re­spond to emer­gen­cies.

"We have a min­is­ter who went in­to Par­lia­ment and stat­ed that there is no lack of re­sources in the Fire Ser­vice, there is no lack of ap­pli­ances in the Fire Ser­vice,” Mo­hammed said. 

“I am telling you, one day, you are go­ing to call and there is go­ing to be no ap­pli­ance or ve­hi­cle to re­spond, and your house will be on fire," he warned.

Mo­hammed said while the Fire Ser­vice can­not take in­dus­tri­al ac­tion, they will stand in sol­i­dar­i­ty with the trade union move­ment and fight for work­ers and the coun­try.

Lament­ing all the is­sues fac­ing the coun­try in­clud­ing the Paria tragedy and fu­el in­creas­es, Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Work­ers Union gen­er­al sec­re­tary, Clyde El­der, asked: "What will it take?" 

And Leti­tia Cox, Sec­ond Vice Pres­i­dent of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Reg­is­tered Nurs­es As­so­ci­a­tion, said nurs­es, like oth­er work­ers, strug­gle with job se­cu­ri­ty, an in­crease in con­tract em­ploy­ment, an un­safe work en­vi­ron­ment, 2013 salaries and oth­er work-re­lat­ed is­sues.

She promised, how­ev­er, that they will con­tin­ue to push back. 

The May Day pro­ces­sion end­ed at Har­ris Prom­e­nade with an ad­dress by JTUM leader, An­cel Ro­get.