Ot­to Car­ring­ton

Se­nior Re­porter

ot­to.car­ring­ton@cnc3.co.tt

A trade union leader yes­ter­day called on Gov­ern­ment to keep the promis­es it made dur­ing the cam­paign trail and al­so chal­lenged oth­er union lead­ers, whom he said had lost their way, to stand with work­ers or step aside, warn­ing that sol­i­dar­i­ty could not be prac­tised on­ly when con­ve­nient.

Speak­ing at the labour move­ment’s ral­ly in Wood­ford Square fol­low­ing a march through Port-of-Spain, Steel Work­ers’ Union of T&T pres­i­dent Tim­o­thy Bai­ley urged trade union­ists to put work­ers’ in­ter­ests ahead of per­son­al con­sid­er­a­tions.

“I do not want to be­lieve you are sell­outs. So, I call on my com­rades who have lost their way to un­der­stand that sol­i­dar­i­ty is for­ev­er. It is not a con­ve­nient thing. It is for­ev­er. Do right by the work­ing class. Do your job or leave the job,” he said.

Bai­ley said pub­lic fig­ures, ac­tivists, trade union­ists and oth­ers in po­si­tions of au­thor­i­ty should not be afraid to speak out on is­sues, even when do­ing so could car­ry per­son­al con­se­quences.

He named no union in his ap­peal, which came amid di­vi­sions over par­tic­i­pa­tion in the demon­stra­tion. Oil­fields Work­ers’ Trade Union pres­i­dent gen­er­al An­cel Ro­get had pre­vi­ous­ly said his union would not of­fi­cial­ly par­tic­i­pate be­cause mem­bers were prepar­ing for ne­go­ti­a­tions. The Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion, led by Fe­l­isha Thomas, al­so did not par­tic­i­pate in the march.

Bai­ley al­so ac­cused Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar of fail­ing to ho­n­our cam­paign promis­es, re­ject­ing sug­ges­tions that work­ers should re­main silent while wait­ing for the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress-led Gov­ern­ment to act.

“Ho­n­ourable Prime Min­is­ter, on your cam­paign trail you promised the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go a lot of things and you have not de­liv­ered on your promis­es,” he said.

“Do you want to muz­zle the peo­ple? We are say­ing that can­not hap­pen.”

He al­so re­ject­ed claims that unions had re­mained silent dur­ing the pre­vi­ous Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) ad­min­is­tra­tion and were now tar­get­ing the UNC Gov­ern­ment.

Hold­ing up a news­pa­per re­port of an ear­li­er protest against for­mer prime min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley, Bai­ley point­ed to his union’s ac­tivism since the clo­sure of the steel in­dus­try in 2016.

“The trade union move­ment has nev­er been silent and the trade union move­ment will nev­er be silent,” he said.

Bai­ley ar­gued that the in­dus­try’s clo­sure had cost the coun­try jobs, eco­nom­ic ac­tiv­i­ty and for­eign ex­change earn­ings, while leav­ing dis­placed work­ers strug­gling for com­pen­sa­tion.

“You can­not re­open a steel in­dus­try and side­line the steel work­ers who built the in­dus­try,” he said.

He added, “Will we con­tin­ue with a re­volv­ing door of pol­i­tics where you promise peo­ple and do not de­liv­er?”

He al­so called for pro­posed amend­ments to the Re­trench­ment and Sev­er­ance Ben­e­fits Act to be brought be­fore Par­lia­ment ur­gent­ly, ar­gu­ing that em­ploy­ees re­mained vul­ner­a­ble when com­pa­nies shut down with­out pay­ing work­ers their en­ti­tle­ments.

Ahead of the march, Per­sad-Bisses­sar de­fend­ed her ad­min­is­tra­tion’s record, say­ing it was set­tling back­pay, up­dat­ing salaries, of­fer­ing 10 per cent wage in­creas­es and ad­vanc­ing leg­is­la­tion aimed at pro­tect­ing work­ers.

She al­so ac­cused the protest of be­ing dri­ven by po­lit­i­cal and racial hos­til­i­ty, ques­tion­ing unions’ de­ci­sion to march along­side rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the for­mer ad­min­is­tra­tion.

Bai­ley, how­ev­er, told sup­port­ers the demon­stra­tion marked on­ly the be­gin­ning and urged work­ers to recog­nise their role in shap­ing the coun­try’s fu­ture.

Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Work­ers’ Union sec­re­tary gen­er­al Joanne Ogeer al­so crit­i­cised the ad­min­is­tra­tion’s treat­ment of dis­sent, warn­ing that po­lit­i­cal pow­er did not give lead­ers the right to hu­mil­i­ate cit­i­zens.

De­scrib­ing the demon­stra­tion as a per­for­mance ap­praisal of the Gov­ern­ment, she re­mind­ed lead­ers that vot­ers would ul­ti­mate­ly de­cide whether to re­new their man­date.

“You are not the own­ers of this coun­try. You are the tem­po­rary cus­to­di­ans of the peo­ple’s trust,” Ogeer said.

She ac­cused the ad­min­is­tra­tion of aban­don­ing the hu­mil­i­ty it dis­played be­fore tak­ing of­fice and ar­gued that work­ers’ hard­ships could not be dis­missed through par­ti­san la­bels.

“A hun­gry child does not ask whether their par­ents vot­ed UNC or PNM. A re­trenched work­er does not pay their mort­gage with a par­ty card,” she said.

Ogeer urged cit­i­zens to de­fend peace­ful protest, re­ject racial di­vi­sion and de­mand ac­count­abil­i­ty be­tween elec­tions.

“You can­not preach democ­ra­cy dur­ing an elec­tion cam­paign and prac­tise in­tol­er­ance af­ter win­ning,” she said.

Es­tate Po­lice As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent Deryck Richard­son mean­while di­rect­ed crit­i­cism at suc­ces­sive ad­min­is­tra­tions, ac­cus­ing them of fail­ing se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cers and re­tirees.

Ac­knowl­edg­ing PNM rep­re­sen­ta­tives at the march, he chal­lenged their record while in gov­ern­ment.

“Where were you when we need­ed you? We plead­ed, we cried, we marched, and noth­ing,” he said.

Richard­son called for a spe­cial in­dus­tri­al frame­work for se­cu­ri­ty work­ers, a liv­ing wage, over­time af­ter eight hours, an­nu­al and sick leave, paid uni­forms, prop­er train­ing and time­ly pay­ment of wages.

He al­so de­mand­ed set­tle­ment of out­stand­ing re­tire­ment ben­e­fits and wage ne­go­ti­a­tions, in­sist­ing that mon­ey owed to work­ers was a debt, not a po­lit­i­cal favour.

“They come for your vote. They make promis­es. And af­ter elec­tions, too many work­ers are ex­pect­ed to be qui­et while their rights are de­nied,” Richard­son said.

Sea­men and Wa­ter­front Work­ers’ Trade Union pres­i­dent Michael An­nisette, who al­so serves as NATUC’s gen­er­al sec­re­tary, de­mand­ed the set­tle­ment of all out­stand­ing col­lec­tive agree­ments. He said it was un­ac­cept­able that work­ers re­mained on salaries dat­ing back to 2012 and 2013 while fac­ing the re­al­i­ties of the cost of liv­ing in 2026.

An­nisette al­so re­ject­ed the Prime Min­is­ter’s sug­ges­tion that unions protest­ed on­ly when an In­di­an prime min­is­ter held of­fice, cit­ing demon­stra­tions un­der the pre­vi­ous PNM ad­min­is­tra­tion over Petrotrin’s clo­sure, wage of­fers and salary in­creas­es for se­nior pub­lic of­fi­cials.

“We chal­lenged the PNM when it was in of­fice. We will hold the UNC ac­count­able while it is in of­fice and we make no apolo­gies for that,” he said.

“That is not be­tray­al, it is trade union­ism.”

An­nisette main­tained that or­gan­ised labour’s re­spon­si­bil­i­ty was to work­ers, pen­sion­ers and their fam­i­lies, re­gard­less of which par­ty was in pow­er.

“The labour move­ment did not dis­cov­er in­jus­tice af­ter the PNM left of­fice. We have chal­lenged it con­sis­tent­ly,” he said.

The NATUC-or­gan­ised protest be­gan short­ly af­ter 9 am at Memo­r­i­al Park, draw­ing hun­dreds of union mem­bers, op­po­si­tion par­ty mem­bers and oth­er par­tic­i­pants.

Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les, MP Stu­art Young and Pa­tri­ot­ic Front leader Mick­ela Pan­day were among those in at­ten­dance.

Work­ers marched over un­re­solved wage ne­go­ti­a­tions, out­stand­ing pay­ments, re­trench­ment and broad­er con­cerns about the UNC’s gov­er­nance of coun­try.

The protest had been post­poned from Oc­to­ber 16 to ac­com­mo­date the state-as­sist­ed fu­ner­al of ca­lyp­son­ian Slinger “Mighty Spar­row” Fran­cis­co.

Or­gan­is­ers lat­er re­ject­ed an­oth­er re­quest for post­pone­ment, which An­nisette said po­lice at­trib­uted to re­sources be­ing com­mit­ted to To­ba­go Car­ni­val.