The trade union move­ment is stick­ing by its de­ci­sion to opt out of the na­tion­al Tri­par­tite Ad­vi­so­ry Coun­cil (NTAC).

It al­so is rub­bish­ing Gov­ern­ment claims that tri­par­tism is alive and well since NTAC has not been func­tion­ing as it should. 

In a joint state­ment is­sued to­day, the three trade union um­brel­la bod­ies— Na­tion­al Trade Union Cen­tre (NATUC), Joint Trade Union Move­ment (JTUM) and the Fed­er­a­tion of In­de­pen­dent Trade Unions and NGOS (FI­TUN)—say sev­er­al oc­ca­sions of uni­lat­er­al ac­tion by Gov­ern­ment on mat­ters of na­tion­al im­por­tance re­quir­ing so­cial di­a­logue in the tri­par­tite space, have served to ce­ment their de­ci­sion.

The state­ment cites ma­jor in­dus­tri­al is­sues rang­ing from the fail­ure to com­plete col­lec­tive agree­ments with rep­re­sen­ta­tive pub­lic sec­tor unions; to the clo­sures of Petrotrin and the Tourism De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny; the re­trench­ment ex­er­cise at TSTT; to the re­cent ex­er­cise to re­or­gan­ise the Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty, where, the union bod­ies claim, Gov­ern­ment seems in­tent on its union bust­ing and work­ers’ rights in­fringe­ment agen­da.

Ac­cord­ing to the joint state­ment: “We are con­vinced that the gov­ern­ment at­tempt­ed to use NTAC as a mech­a­nism to con­trol the en­tire trade union move­ment, while they con­tin­ued un­abat­ed with their an­ti-work­er and union bust­ing agen­da. We shall have none of that!”

The fol­low­ing is the full text of the joint state­ment from the three trade union fed­er­a­tions…

TRADE UNION FED­ER­A­TIONS STAND­ING FIRM BY THEIR DE­CI­SION

The coun­try’s three trade union fed­er­a­tions, Na­tion­al Trade Union Cen­tre (NATUC), Joint Trade Union Move­ment (JTUM) and the Fed­er­a­tion of In­de­pen­dent Trade Unions and NGOS (FI­TUN) wish to state that we stand vin­di­cat­ed about our de­ci­sion to with­draw from the Na­tion­al Tri­par­tite Ad­vi­so­ry Coun­cil (NTAC). Please note that NTAC was con­cep­tu­al­ized as a Tri­par­tite Process and es­tab­lished by Gov­ern­ment to fa­cil­i­tate the process of true and mean­ing­ful So­cial Di­a­logue.

We have care­ful­ly not­ed that the Min­is­ter of Plan­ning, act­ing in her ca­pac­i­ty as Chair of NTAC, has is­sued a state­ment that in­clud­ed the ac­cep­tance of the res­ig­na­tion of the Trade Union Rep­re­sen­ta­tives from NTAC and that the work of NTAC is go­ing on. In ad­di­tion, we have not­ed with great con­ster­na­tion a state­ment made by the neo­phyte Min­is­ter “Not For” Labour about the Trade Unions be­ing disin­gen­u­ous in their ac­tions of with­draw­ing from NTAC.

First­ly, we wish to state that TRI­PAR­TISM is a process of So­cial Di­a­logue that has been in­sti­tu­tion­al­ized by the In­ter­na­tion­al Labour Or­gan­i­sa­tion, ILO, as one that is con­sti­tut­ed be­tween the three (3) main So­cial Part­ners with­in the econ­o­my, i.e., Gov­ern­ment, Busi­ness and Labour. The ILO de­scribed Tri­par­tism as “the in­ter­ac­tion of gov­ern­ment, em­ploy­ers and work­ers (through their rep­re­sen­ta­tives) as equal and in­de­pen­dent part­ners to seek so­lu­tions to is­sues of com­mon con­cern”.

We posit­ed that sev­er­al ma­jor is­sues of com­mon con­cern were uni­lat­er­al­ly de­cid­ed up­on by the Gov­ern­ment and as such that was con­trary to what the ILO de­scribed as tri­par­tism.

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, sim­ple de­duc­tion in­di­cates that if Labour is not a part of the Tri­par­tite process, then, by de­f­i­n­i­tion, there is no longer a Tri­par­tite process in place. There is no ba­sis for the Gov­ern­ment to claim that NTAC is still func­tion­al. As far as the Labour Move­ment is con­cerned, NTAC is as dead as the then Eco­nom­ic De­vel­op­ment Ad­vi­so­ry Board and the Gov­ern­ment’s much tout­ed “Road to Re­cov­ery Plan’. We wish to align our think­ing to that of our first Prime Min­is­ter the late Dr Er­ic Williams, when he pulled Trinidad and To­ba­go from the floun­der­ing Fed­er­a­tion by stat­ing that “One from Ten leaves Ze­ro”. In this case as far as we are con­cerned, “One from three leaves Ze­ro”.

Sec­ond­ly, we wish to state that the cur­rent In­dus­tri­al Re­la­tions Act of Trinidad and To­ba­go, en­shrines a right for the recog­ni­tion of Trade Unions as the le­git­i­mate and le­gal rep­re­sen­ta­tive for work­ers in the Coun­try, once they hold a Cer­tifi­cate of Recog­ni­tion from the Reg­is­tra­tion, Recog­ni­tion and Cer­ti­fi­ca­tion Board, RRCB. As such, with or with­out NTAC, the Gov­ern­ment as a ma­jor em­ploy­er in the econ­o­my, has a le­gal oblig­a­tion to meet and treat with all Recog­nised Ma­jor­i­ty Unions to deal with mat­ters af­fect­ing work­ers in the coun­try.

We have al­ready stat­ed our jus­ti­fi­ca­tion for with­draw­ing from the NTAC. We have al­so not seen any ra­tio­nale or ex­pla­na­tion giv­en by the Gov­ern­ment in re­sponse to our de­ci­sion to de­part from NTAC.

Clear­ly, the vac­u­ous state­ment by the Min­is­ter of Plan­ning is yet an­oth­er demon­stra­tion of the gov­ern­ment’s com­plete lack of un­der­stand­ing of the tri­par­tite process. So, with­out at­tempt­ing to be rep­e­ti­tious, we wish to make it clear that the three Fed­er­a­tions came to the in­escapable con­clu­sion that NTAC was be­ing con­sid­ered and op­er­a­tional­ized by the Gov­ern­ment as an­oth­er Gov­ern­ment De­part­ment con­trolled by the Cab­i­net. This is def­i­nite­ly not aligned to the tenets and prin­ci­ples of Tri­par­tism, and So­cial Di­a­logue as de­fined by the ILO. We are con­vinced that the gov­ern­ment at­tempt­ed to use NTAC as a mech­a­nism to con­trol the en­tire trade union move­ment, while they con­tin­ued un­abat­ed with their an­ti-work­er and union bust­ing agen­da. We shall have none of that!

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, we wish to re­state that there were sev­er­al oth­er sig­nif­i­cant rea­sons for our with­draw­al from and con­tin­ued non-par­tic­i­pa­tion in NTAC, in­ter alia, the uni­lat­er­al de­ci­sions and no dis­cus­sions at NTAC with re­spect to the clo­sure of TDC and Petrotrin; and re­trench­ment at TSTT, all of which had dis­as­trous ef­fect for the many thou­sands of work­ers who were placed on the bread­line. Not to men­tion the dis­re­spect shown to Trade Unions by the Non-Set­tle­ment of sev­er­al out­stand­ing Col­lec­tive Agree­ments and Ne­go­ti­a­tion’s, the ob­scene state­ments made by the Min­is­ter of Fi­nance, the de­ba­cle with the NIB Wage ne­go­ti­a­tions and now the WASA co­nun­drum where­in the Ex­ec­u­tive Di­rec­tor, un­der the guid­ance and di­rec­tion of the Min­is­ter of Pub­lic Util­i­ties, has made the most egre­gious at­tack on the right of a Trade Union Leader to rep­re­sent the work­ers who would have, le­git­i­mate­ly through a de­mo­c­ra­t­ic process, elect­ed that Leader to rep­re­sent them as pro­vid­ed for by the Labour Leg­is­la­tion, Col­lec­tive Agree­ments and es­tab­lished good and prop­er In­dus­tri­al Re­la­tions Prac­tices.

The Joint Fed­er­a­tions would like to strong­ly ad­vise the Min­is­ter “Not for” Labour, that he should first try to get an un­der­stand­ing of his port­fo­lio and at the same time take note of the abysmal track records of sev­er­al oth­er failed Min­is­ters of Labour, who al­so chose to take the quite “disin­gen­u­ous” path of con­fronta­tion with the Trade Union Move­ment and have all end­ed up in the “Lapey­rouse Hall of In­famy” We are con­vinced that based on his per­for­mance so far, he has al­ready re­served his Plot. The Min­is­ter is disin­gen­u­ous be­cause de­spite nu­mer­ous re­quests, he is yet to meet with all the Trade Unions.

We wish to place on pub­lic record that the Joint Fed­er­a­tions made a rec­om­men­da­tion to the Gov­ern­ment that there should be ur­gent mea­sures tak­en to Legal­ly In­sti­tu­tion­al­ize the So­cial Di­a­logue Process. This will avoid mech­a­nisms like NTAC from be­com­ing just an­oth­er arm of the Gov­ern­ment’s Bu­reau­cra­cy and malaise. In­stead, we are pre­pared to en­gage in di­a­logue, con­sis­tent with our rights as pro­vid­ed for un­der the In­dus­tri­al Re­la­tions Act and good In­dus­tri­al Re­la­tions Prac­tices. How­ev­er, we are not pre­pared to have the labour move­ment be part of a cha­rade or Sham, such as the cur­rent NTAC Con­fig­u­ra­tion, which the Gov­ern­ment has de­signed as part of their Pub­lic Re­la­tions Ma­chin­ery while they emas­cu­late work­ers’ rights and terms and con­di­tions of em­ploy­ment.

Fi­nal­ly, we wish to re­it­er­ate our po­si­tion that our con­tin­ued par­tic­i­pa­tion in the NTAC un­der the cur­rent con­di­tions and be­hav­iour of this gov­ern­ment would be sac­ri­le­gious to the aims and ob­jec­tives of the Pro­gres­sive Trade Union Move­ment. As such, with­out apol­o­gy we stand firm in our po­si­tion to re­move our­selves from the NTAC.

Na­tion­al Trade Union Cen­tre (NATUC)

Joint Trade Union Move­ment (JTUM)

Fed­er­a­tion of In­de­pen­dent Trade Unions and NGOS (FI­TUN)