13 unions threaten to go to court over protest restrictions

OT­TO CAR­RING­TON

Se­nior Re­porter

ot­to.car­ring­[email protected]

Thir­teen trade unions, call­ing them­selves the Pro­gres­sive In­de­pen­dent Trade Unions, are now threat­en­ing le­gal ac­tion against the Gov­ern­ment over the State of Emer­gency (SOE) reg­u­la­tions that re­strict pub­lic protests at 15 des­ig­nat­ed lo­ca­tions na­tion­wide. The unions warn that the mea­sures un­der­mine con­sti­tu­tion­al free­doms and se­vere­ly lim­it tra­di­tion­al labour rights.

The unions held a news con­fer­ence at the Trinidad and To­ba­go Uni­fied Teach­ers As­so­ci­a­tion (TTUTA) head of­fice in Carlsen Field, where TTUTA pres­i­dent Crys­tal Ashe said they will not be si­lenced. He said the unions are pre­pared to act with­in the law if the reg­u­la­tions are not re­vised.

“We will not be moved. We will do what is nec­es­sary, all with­in the am­bit of the law. I want to be very clear on that. We would have sought le­gal coun­sel be­fore we came here. We didn’t just come here by vaps, we are here to ex­plain to you, the na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty, what is tak­ing place,” he said.

Tear­ing up a copy of Le­gal No­tice No. 40 of 2026, which lists the 15 State fa­cil­i­ties where protests and demon­stra­tions were not al­lowed, Ashe said the reg­u­la­tions ef­fec­tive­ly crip­ple the trade union move­ment.

“Every day that goes by, it ba­si­cal­ly puts a spoke in our wheel as trade union­ists. We can­not do that which we must”, he said.

The lo­ca­tions where protests are pro­hib­it­ed are the Par­lia­ment, the Of­fice of the Pres­i­dent, the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter, the Diplo­mat­ic Cen­tre, the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al, the Min­istry of Fi­nance, the Min­istry of De­fence, the Min­istry of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty, the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice Head­quar­ters, the Trinidad and To­ba­go De­fence Force Head­quar­ters, the Trinidad and To­ba­go Prison Ser­vice Head­quar­ters, the Of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions, Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port, ANR Robin­son In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port, and the Port Au­thor­i­ty.

The le­gal no­tice was is­sued af­ter protests fol­low­ing the po­lice-in­volved fa­tal shoot­ing of Joshua Sama­roo and the an­nounce­ment of charges to be laid against his part­ner, Ka­ia Sealy.

Steel Work­ers Union pres­i­dent Tim­o­thy Bai­ley stressed that the labour move­ment was not in con­flict with the Gov­ern­ment but was re­spond­ing to what it saw as a con­sti­tu­tion­al over­reach aris­ing from the reg­u­la­tions.

He said the in­tro­duc­tion of the 15 re­strict­ed protest zones stripped work­ers of a key ne­go­ti­at­ing tool.

“What has been done with the in­tro­duc­tion of these 15 zones is to re­move from work­ers who are work­ing in es­sen­tial in­dus­tries their right to prop­er­ly ne­go­ti­ate, be­cause re­moval of the right to this tool, which may be pick­et­ing, march­ing or demon­stra­tions, is to re­move the right to lever­age your point,” he said.

He claimed the reg­u­la­tions ap­peared to have been rushed and could ben­e­fit from re­view.

“And we are say­ing that it doesn’t ap­pear that a lot of thought went in­to the form­ing of this leg­is­la­tion. And we are say­ing noth­ing is wrong; we are all hu­man. We know the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al is a well-renowned law­mak­er. I don’t know if this did not pass be­fore his desk,” he said. “We are say­ing if you, un­for­tu­nate­ly, didn’t think about what we have men­tioned to­day, please go back to the draw­ing board”, Bai­ley said.

He urged that amend­ments be made to pre­serve the rights of work­ers and ac­tivists.

Ashe added that the coali­tion had tak­en le­gal ad­vice be­fore ad­dress­ing the pub­lic and was pre­pared to es­ca­late the mat­ter if nec­es­sary.

Mean­while, Ashe clar­i­fied that while the Joint Trade Union Move­ment (JTUM) was not for­mal­ly part of the an­nounce­ment, there was no dis­agree­ment be­tween the um­brel­la union and the coali­tion, even though JTUM leader An­cel Ro­get was no­tably ab­sent.

The Oil­field Work­ers Trade Union, which Ro­get al­so leads, has sup­port­ed the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress Gov­ern­ment.

But hours af­ter the an­nounce­ment, JTUM, in a state­ment, strong­ly con­demned Le­gal No­tice No. 40 of 2026 is­sued by the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice, which es­tab­lish­es 15 des­ig­nat­ed no-protest zones across T&T with a 500-me­tre ex­clu­sion ra­dius.

The state­ment is­sued by JTUM Sec­re­tary, Ozzi War­wick, stat­ed that while the union sup­ports the State of Emer­gency to com­bat crime and vi­o­lence, it ar­gued that the or­der rep­re­sents an over­reach of au­thor­i­ty that in­fringes on cit­i­zens’ con­sti­tu­tion­al rights and un­der­mines the abil­i­ty of trade unions to en­gage in law­ful and peace­ful protest.

JTUM warned that the re­stric­tions could be ex­pand­ed ar­bi­trar­i­ly and said there is no ev­i­dence that the labour move­ment has act­ed un­law­ful­ly to jus­ti­fy such mea­sures.

He fur­ther stat­ed that the pro­vi­sions go be­yond the scope of the cur­rent SoE and called for Le­gal No­tice No. 40 of 2026 to be im­me­di­ate­ly re­scind­ed, ar­gu­ing that suf­fi­cient emer­gency pow­ers al­ready ex­ist for law en­force­ment to main­tain pub­lic or­der.

• ↓Steel Work­ers Union of Trinidad and To­ba­go (SWUTT)

• ↓Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Work­ers Union (CWU)

• ↓Trinidad and To­ba­go Nurs­es and Nurs­ing As­sis­tants As­so­ci­a­tion (TTNNA),

• ↓Sea­men and Wa­ter­front Work­ers’ Trade Union (SWW­TU)

• ↓Es­tate Po­lice As­so­ci­a­tion (EPA),

• ↓Avi­a­tion, Com­mu­ni­ca­tions and Al­lied Work­ers Union (ACAWU)

• ↓Trinidad and To­ba­go Air­line Pi­lots As­so­ci­a­tion (TTAL­PA)

• ↓Bank­ing, In­sur­ance and Gen­er­al Work­ers’ Union (BIG­WU)

• ↓Trinidad and To­ba­go Uni­fied Teach­ers As­so­ci­a­tion (TTUTA)

• ↓Con­trac­tors and Gen­er­al Work­ers’ Trade Union (CGW­TU)

• ↓Maxi Taxi As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go

• ↓Prison Of­fi­cers’ As­so­ci­a­tion (POA) and

• ↓Amal­ga­mat­ed Work­ers Union (AMU)