Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has paid trib­ute to Trinidad and To­ba­go’s work­ers while reaf­firm­ing her Gov­ern­ment’s com­mit­ment to pro­tect­ing labour rights and ex­pand­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties for work­ing peo­ple.

Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo has un­der­scored both grat­i­tude and vig­i­lance in ho­n­our­ing the na­tion’s work­ers.

Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les has ac­cused the Gov­ern­ment of fail­ing to live up to its promis­es to work­ers.

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has de­fend­ed leg­is­la­tion aimed at restor­ing the Oil­fields Work­ers’ Trade Union’s (OW­TU) rights fol­low­ing Petrotrin’s 2018 re­struc­tur­ing, re­ject­ing claims that the mea­sure breach­es the Con­sti­tu­tion or in­fringes on the rights of Her­itage Pe­tro­le­um Ltd and Paria Fu­el Trad­ing em­ploy­ees.

Op­po­si­tion Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment MP Stu­art Young has warned of fi­nan­cial con­se­quences that will af­fect Her­itage Pe­tro­le­um and Paria Fu­el Trad­ing in dev­as­tat­ing ways aris­ing from Gov­ern­ment’s leg­is­la­tion for these com­pa­nies to take over Petrotrin’s col­lec­tive agree­ments retroac­tive to 2018.

De­spite as­sur­ances from Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar on the eve of Labour Day that leg­is­la­tion will be in­tro­duced to strength­en pro­tec­tions for work­ers’ rights, to­day’s Labour Day march and ral­ly is ex­pect­ed to draw strong sup­port from the labour move­ment, with trade union­ists and so­cial ac­tivists us­ing the an­nu­al event to high­light a range of un­re­solved na­tion­al is­sues.

Labour Min­is­ter Leroy Bap­tiste yes­ter­day de­nied that leg­is­la­tion al­low­ing the Oil­field Work­ers’ Trade Union (OW­TU) to be recog­nised in two suc­ces­sor com­pa­nies as the ma­jor­i­ty union for Petrotrin’s col­lec­tive agree­ments was be­ing done by the Gov­ern­ment to paci­fy the labour move­ment ahead of to­day’s Labour Day ob­ser­vances.

De­spite re­ports of low at­ten­dance at sev­er­al pri­ma­ry and sec­ondary schools yes­ter­day, both the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion and the Trinidad and To­ba­go Uni­fied Teach­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion (TTUTA) said they are un­aware of any or­gan­ised sick­out by teach­ers up­set over de­layed back­pay pay­ments.

As Trinidad and To­ba­go com­mem­o­rates Labour Day to­day, the Na­tion­al Trade Union Cen­tre of Trinidad and To­ba­go (NATUC) has is­sued a strong call for re­newed com­mit­ment to work­ers’ rights, fair wages and so­cial jus­tice.

Op­po­si­tion Mem­bers of Par­lia­ment Stu­art Young and Bri­an Man­ning are call­ing for the ur­gent in­ter­ven­tion of House Speak­er Jagdeo Singh to ad­dress al­le­ga­tions of bias in­volv­ing par­lia­men­tary staff and con­cerns sur­round­ing the con­duct of Leader of Gov­ern­ment Busi­ness Bar­ry Padarath.

In ad­di­tion to Face­book Mar­ket­place rob­beries and fraud­u­lent “rent-to-own” scams, po­lice are al­so warn­ing the pub­lic to be wary of an emerg­ing trend where crim­i­nals are trick­ing peo­ple in­to buy­ing coun­ter­feit US cur­ren­cy.

Ef­fort, char­ac­ter, and de­ter­mi­na­tion are the true mea­sures of suc­cess, Or­thopaedic Sur­geon Dr. Amir Ramharack told the grad­u­at­ing Stan­dard Five class of Mon­trose APS Vedic Pri­ma­ry School dur­ing their cer­e­mo­ny on Thurs­day.