DA­REECE PO­LO

Se­nior Re­porter

da­reece.po­lo@guardian.co.tt

The labour move­ment will go on with its ma­jor protest march in Port-of-Spain to­day, de­spite sev­er­al re­quests from se­nior po­lice of­fi­cers to post­pone it de­spite hav­ing sought ap­proval from the Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er well in ad­vance.

This was re­vealed by Na­tion­al Trade Union Cen­tre (NATUC) gen­er­al sec­re­tary Michael An­nisette yes­ter­day. He said union rep­re­sen­ta­tives, who met with po­lice on Wednes­day, re­ject­ed the post­pone­ment re­quest be­cause the demon­stra­tion had al­ready been de­layed twice. While he said he did not be­lieve there was po­lit­i­cal in­ter­fer­ence, An­nisette de­scribed the re­quest as un­rea­son­able.

“I would have point­ed out to the se­nior of­fi­cer that it is un­fair, un­rea­son­able, harsh and op­pres­sive,” An­nisette said dur­ing a me­dia con­fer­ence at the SWW­TU Hall in Port-of-Spain

“It is not in keep­ing with good in­dus­tri­al re­la­tions or hu­mane prac­tices for any­body to think that the union, at this eleventh hour, can post­pone a march for some oth­er time. And hear what was the rea­son, this is crit­i­cal, you know, that To­ba­go Car­ni­val had ex­haust­ed the re­sources.”

De­spite the dis­agree­ment, An­nisette thanked the po­lice for ul­ti­mate­ly un­der­stand­ing the labour move­ment’s po­si­tion.

Sev­en unions were rep­re­sent­ed at yes­ter­day’s me­dia con­fer­ence, in­clud­ing the Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Work­ers’ Union (CWU), the Trinidad and To­ba­go Reg­is­tered Nurs­es As­so­ci­a­tion (TTR­NA) and the Trinidad and To­ba­go Uni­fied Teach­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion (TTUTA). No­tably ab­sent were the Pub­lic Ser­vices’ As­so­ci­a­tion (PSA) and the Oil­fields Work­ers’ Trade Union (OW­TU), both mem­bers of Gov­ern­ment’s Coali­tion of In­ter­ests.

An­nisette main­tained that all unions were in­vit­ed, ar­gu­ing that work­ers’ con­cerns should tran­scend or­gan­i­sa­tion­al and po­lit­i­cal dif­fer­ences.

“When you’re a true trade union leader, any­where a work­er feels pain, you feel that pain too. And that will pro­pel you to lend sup­port, sup­port for the labour move­ment and work­ers and strug­gling peo­ple,” he said.

“I am not re­spon­si­ble for what peo­ple say, what peo­ple think and what peo­ple do, be­cause we live in a de­mo­c­ra­t­ic so­ci­ety. But I am re­spon­si­ble for how I re­spond to things. His­to­ry has a way of judg­ing us, and his­to­ry will judge all of us by our ac­tions, not our words.”

An­nisette said the labour move­ment wants the Gov­ern­ment to bring all par­ties in­volved in out­stand­ing ne­go­ti­a­tions to­geth­er to reach set­tle­ments.

“We can­not con­tin­ue, in 2026, to have work­ers still work­ing on 2014 salaries, some on 2012 salaries, and then talk about pro­duc­tiv­i­ty. This is mad­ness. This is eco­nom­ic mad­ness.”

He al­so again re­ject­ed Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s sug­ges­tion that the labour move­ment on­ly stages protests when an In­do-Trinida­di­an prime min­is­ter is in of­fice.

“Don’t be fooled by that dis­in­for­ma­tion and mis­in­for­ma­tion, which, in our hum­ble view, is an at­tempt to di­vide peo­ple along racial lines. The his­tor­i­cal da­ta would not sup­port a state­ment that the on­ly time the labour move­ment protests is when an In­di­an prime min­is­ter is in pow­er. That is an in­sult to our in­tel­li­gence, a dis­re­gard for the truth and his­tor­i­cal­ly in­cor­rect.

“That state­ment should be an im­pe­tus for each and every one of us to come off the fence and lend sup­port to that march to­day.”

The 12 unions ex­pect­ed to par­tic­i­pate in to­day’s march are the CWU; Steel Work­ers’ Union of Trinidad and To­ba­go; Avi­a­tion, Com­mu­ni­ca­tion and Al­lied Work­ers’ Union; Sea­men and Wa­ter­front Work­ers Trade Union (SWW­TU); Es­tate Po­lice As­so­ci­a­tion; TTUTA; Bank­ing, In­sur­ance and Gen­er­al Work­ers’ Union; Amal­ga­mat­ed Work­ers Union; Prison Of­fi­cers’ As­so­ci­a­tion; TTR­NA; Maxi Taxi As­so­ci­a­tion and the Con­trac­tors and Gen­er­al Work­ers’ Trade Union.

PM urges cit­i­zens to avoid cap­i­tal

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has urged cit­i­zens to avoid Port-of-Spain to­day, ac­cus­ing the 12 trade unions plan­ning to march in the cap­i­tal of har­bour­ing po­lit­i­cal and racial hos­til­i­ty to­ward her Gov­ern­ment.

In a strong­ly word­ed state­ment yes­ter­day, Per­sad-Bisses­sar crit­i­cised the unions’ de­ci­sion to protest along­side mem­bers of the Op­po­si­tion Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM), ac­cus­ing them of aban­don­ing work­ers’ in­ter­ests.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar ac­cused the unions of align­ing them­selves with PNM MPs who, she said, had failed to se­cure salary in­creas­es and out­stand­ing back­pay for work­ers dur­ing the par­ty’s decade in of­fice. She ac­cused the unions of re­main­ing silent dur­ing that pe­ri­od de­spite what she de­scribed as threats, ridicule and in­ad­e­quate of­fers made to work­ers.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar warned cit­i­zens against ap­proach­ing the protest route, sug­gest­ing the demon­stra­tion could de­scend in­to con­fronta­tion.

“Giv­en the re­cent com­ments of the PNM MPs in­vok­ing ha­tred to­wards UNC mem­bers, I en­cour­age all law-abid­ing cit­i­zens, in­clud­ing UNC sup­port­ers, to avoid the pro­posed protest route and Port-of-Spain al­to­geth­er if you can to­mor­row. These pro­test­ers are not dri­ven by ra­tio­nal thought; they are dri­ven by racial and po­lit­i­cal ha­tred of the UNC and may at­tempt to pro­voke you and the TTPS in­to a vi­o­lent con­fronta­tion,” she said.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar al­so de­fend­ed her ad­min­is­tra­tion’s record, say­ing the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress Gov­ern­ment had, in its first 18 months in of­fice, set­tled out­stand­ing back­pay, up­dat­ed salaries, of­fered 10 per cent wage in­creas­es and passed labour leg­is­la­tion to pro­tect work­ers. How­ev­er, she did not men­tion that those mea­sures ap­plied to unions that are part of the Gov­ern­ment’s Coali­tion of In­ter­ests.

“Sad­ly, no mat­ter what the UNC Gov­ern­ment does for some trade unions, it will nev­er be enough. It is clear that the protest to­mor­row by these unions and the PNM is dri­ven by racial and po­lit­i­cal ha­tred of the UNC and not by ac­tu­al ef­forts to get ben­e­fits for their mem­bers,” she said.