Ra­mona Ram­di­al

Prime Min­is­ter Per­sad-Bisses­sar cel­e­brat­ed last Fri­day af­ter­noon that “the protest has bust, back to work on Mon­day…,” ac­com­pa­nied by what her Face­book pro­file iden­ti­fied as an “aer­i­al pic which me­dia won’t show you”. It re­mind­ed me of “fete over, back to work!” from late for­mer PM George Cham­bers.

Per­haps PM Per­sad-Bisses­sar de­tect­ed the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) “swine cul­ture” which she ab­hors in Fri­day’s protest. She had asked the trade unions to de­sist from their “shame­ful po­lit­i­cal and racial ha­tred to­wards the UNC gov­ern­ment.” They did not can­cel their protest and NATUC Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary Michael An­nisette re­ject­ed that char­ac­ter­i­sa­tion, say­ing “the labour move­ment doesn’t see race. We don’t see eth­nic­i­ty. We rep­re­sent work­ers, re­gard­less of where they’re from.”

The Prime Min­is­ter en­quired in­to the where­abouts dur­ing the march of “the fake eat a food elite, lo­cal drug mafia, and the rich In­di­ans, Chi­nese and Mid­dle East­ern­ers who the PNM MPs en­riched.” One can sur­mise that these groups are ex­hibit­ing “racial and po­lit­i­cal ha­tred to­wards oth­ers.” Some mem­bers of the PNM at­tend­ed the march led by Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les.

NATUC was the ma­jor protest-or­gan­is­ing body, and about 12 unions, in­clud­ing CWU, SWW­TU, TTUTA, BIG­WU and TTR­NA, par­tic­i­pat­ed. From TV video footage, the march looked big. Are these unions those that “wake up to protest when­ev­er there is an East In­di­an prime min­is­ter?” We on­ly had one oth­er PM of East In­di­an de­scent, Bas­deo Pan­day, and in­ter­est­ing­ly, his daugh­ter, Mick­ela Pan­day, leader of the Pa­tri­ot­ic Front, joined Fri­day’s protest. For­mer Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship gov­ern­ment sen­a­tor and Move­ment for So­cial Jus­tice leader, David Ab­du­lah, al­so par­tic­i­pat­ed.

The OW­TU did not at­tend, with Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Bar­ry Padarath an­nounc­ing a cu­mu­la­tive nine per cent salary-in­crease set­tle­ment to­talling $66.1 mil­lion for two bar­gain­ing pe­ri­ods span­ning 2016 to 2020. One hun­dred and fifty work­ers are ex­pect­ed to ben­e­fit, sug­gest­ing an av­er­age pay­out of about $440,000 per work­er.

PSA pres­i­dent Fe­l­isha Thomas in­di­cat­ed that she did not par­tic­i­pate in the protest be­cause of the pres­ence of the PNM, whom she blames for years of ne­glect of work­ers. The PSA is yet to sign for Gov­ern­ment’s “fi­nal of­fer” of 40 per cent cash.

In 2018, I marched with the OW­TU as a then-op­po­si­tion MP when the then-PNM gov­ern­ment closed the Petrotrin re­fin­ery. I did not de­tect any racism at the time, but as I walked with An­cel Ro­get, pres­i­dent gen­er­al of the OW­TU, I re­mem­ber won­der­ing about the re­volv­ing re­la­tion­ships be­tween the trade unions and po­lit­i­cal par­ties. I nev­er for­got his un­veil­ing in 2014 of the man­nequin of then-and-cur­rent PM Per­sad-Bisses­sar ahead of our Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship gov­ern­ment’s GE2015 de­feat.

Prime Min­is­ter Per­sad-Bisses­sar her­self at­tend­ed many trade union/an­ti-PNM gov­ern­ment protests, some right in front of Par­lia­ment, staged by the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress. It is par for the course. Now that the ta­bles have turned, why fear these protest ac­tions? Ab­du­lah was a Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship gov­ern­ment sen­a­tor, and he marched on Fri­day. Let them march, but take note of the is­sues they raise and seek to ad­dress them. We held hands with the unions for 10 years while the PNM was in pow­er, and now it’s the PNM op­po­si­tion’s turn.

It is un­sus­tain­able to keep hold­ing hands with those who have in­creas­ing de­mands when re­sources are tight. Wage ne­go­ti­a­tions are for­ev­er locked in past pe­ri­ods. An ex­tra $20 bil­lion in gov­ern­ment rev­enue would be a panacea, but where would that come from? It is in­ter­est­ing that our trade union lead­ers fre­quent­ly re­fer to their “com­rades,” as they tend to share a de­mo­c­ra­t­ic so­cial­ist ide­ol­o­gy. They tend to be sym­pa­thet­ic to oth­er “com­rades” in the re­gion, such as in Venezuela and Cu­ba, against what they might con­sid­er to be “Amer­i­can im­pe­ri­al­ism.” Their views on our Gov­ern­ment’s re­cent for­eign pol­i­cy ad­just­ment may al­so af­fect gov­ern­ment-trade union re­la­tions.

The Unit­ed Na­tions’ Gen­er­al As­sem­bly an­nu­al mo­tion to lift the US em­bar­go on Cu­ba has had Trinidad and To­ba­go’s sup­port for 33 con­sec­u­tive years. This year, Trinidad and To­ba­go joined the mi­nor­i­ty with 16 oth­er na­tions to vote against the lift. One hun­dred and thir­ty coun­tries sup­port­ed the ease while 25 ab­stained. We are the on­ly Cari­com state to vote against the mo­tion, which con­tin­ues to chal­lenge Cari­com sol­i­dar­i­ty af­ter the gen­er­al sec­re­tary im­broglio. This reaf­firms our gov­ern­ment’s sup­port for the US gov­ern­ment’s stance, how­ev­er.

Per­haps our Prime Min­is­ter would en­quire in­to the ef­fect our pre­vi­ous sup­port had on Cu­ba’s plight. Will this pol­i­cy shift sup­port ours, though? Will there be a re­ver­sion next year, or is this the new norm? Per­haps the US gov­ern­ment might ad­vance regime change in Cu­ba to the ben­e­fit of its peo­ple, but if so, when?

The US gov­ern­ment has es­ca­lat­ed the sanc­tions, which have been con­demned by the Of­fice of the UN High Com­mis­sion­er for Hu­man Rights. With fre­quent black­outs, health­care col­lapse, in­fra­struc­ture col­lapse, and food short­ages, Cu­ba could be on the brink of so­ci­etal col­lapse. Which pow­er will blink first and, at long last, res­cue the Cuban peo­ple? Per­sad-Bisses­sar in­di­cat­ed that she was against “mil­i­tary dic­ta­tor­ship” and the lav­ish lifestyles of the Cuban elite.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar sup­port­ed the US gov­ern­ment, which fa­cil­i­tat­ed the Del­cy Ro­dríguez ad­min­is­tra­tion’s open­ing of Venezuela for busi­ness. Could this pol­i­cy change have the same ef­fect on Cu­ba? Or will it has­ten their so­ci­etal col­lapse?