Nurses consider protests at ministers’ homes over restrictions

CHESTER SAM­BRA­NO

Lead Ed­i­tor - News­gath­er­ing

chester.sam­bra­[email protected]

Health­care work­ers may con­sid­er protest­ing out­side min­is­ters’ homes if re­stric­tions un­der the State of Emer­gency pre­vent demon­stra­tions in tra­di­tion­al lo­ca­tions, Trinidad and To­ba­go Na­tion­al Nurs­es As­so­ci­a­tion (TTNNA) pres­i­dent Idi Stu­art has warned.

Speak­ing with the Sun­day Guardian, Stu­art said mem­bers of the as­so­ci­a­tion have al­ready sug­gest­ed al­ter­na­tive protest sites as frus­tra­tion grows over both protest re­stric­tions and the lack of clar­i­ty sur­round­ing salary in­creas­es for Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty (RHA) work­ers.

“A num­ber of our mem­bers have sug­gest­ed al­ter­na­tive venues, venues used pre­vi­ous­ly by oth­er unions, in­clu­sive of the OW­TU, where they went to min­is­ters’ hous­es,” Stu­art said.

He ar­gued that re­strict­ing demon­stra­tions in ar­eas where politi­cians work could push unions to con­sid­er oth­er lo­ca­tions.

“When politi­cians block per­sons from protest­ing in the nor­mal work­places these politi­cians work with­in, you rel­e­gate per­sons to find al­ter­na­tive sites which may not be palat­able to the very said politi­cians,” he said.

The com­ments come as unions con­tin­ue to ob­ject to reg­u­la­tions in­tro­duced un­der the State of Emer­gency that lim­it protests in parts of Port-of-Spain and oth­er des­ig­nat­ed ar­eas.

Stu­art said the group of unions that re­cent­ly voiced con­cerns about the re­stric­tions has not met again since its last pub­lic state­ment, but in­di­vid­ual unions con­tin­ue to dis­cuss their op­tions.

He said the as­so­ci­a­tion plans to hand-de­liv­er a let­ter to Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar on Tues­day, re­quest­ing a meet­ing, with the protest re­stric­tions ex­pect­ed to be the main top­ic of dis­cus­sion.

“With the Prime Min­is­ter’s state­ments fol­low­ing the state­ment by the 13 unions re­cent­ly, she in­di­cat­ed that she’s will­ing to meet and di­a­logue. We have been at­tempt­ing to do so,” Stu­art said.

“We are will­ing to meet at any time, but hav­ing ac­cess to the Prime Min­is­ter has con­tin­ued to prove very dif­fi­cult.”

Stu­art al­so sig­nalled pos­si­ble in­dus­tri­al ac­tion over what he said was the con­tin­ued un­cer­tain­ty sur­round­ing salary in­creas­es for RHA work­ers.

He said health­care work­ers ex­pect­ed the same per­cent­age in­creas­es grant­ed to pub­lic ser­vants to be ex­tend­ed to RHA em­ploy­ees for out­stand­ing ne­go­ti­a­tion pe­ri­ods. How­ev­er, he said re­cent Gov­ern­ment an­nounce­ments ap­peared to ex­clude them.

Stu­art said the stakes are par­tic­u­lar­ly high for RHA em­ploy­ees be­cause many re­main on 2013 salaries while await­ing the res­o­lu­tion of out­stand­ing ne­go­ti­a­tions.

“If it’s not con­tained with­in the Mid-Year Bud­get Re­view, which it ap­pears not to, then it means re­gion­al health au­thor­i­ty work­ers will be rel­e­gat­ed for an­oth­er year to re­main on 2013 salaries. That would not be ac­cept­able,” he said.

Stu­art said the as­so­ci­a­tion is await­ing con­fir­ma­tion of the con­tents of the Mid-Year Bud­get Re­view be­fore de­cid­ing on its next move.

“Once we get con­fir­ma­tion it’s not in the bud­get, which it ap­pears to be, we’ll be an­nounc­ing our next ma­jor step,” he said.

While mem­bers have sug­gest­ed protests out­side min­is­ters’ homes, Stu­art stressed that no fi­nal de­ci­sion has been tak­en and dis­cus­sions with mem­bers are on­go­ing.

Stu­art ques­tioned whether the re­stric­tions were in­tend­ed to curb le­git­i­mate pub­lic protest, warn­ing that con­tin­ued lim­i­ta­tions on demon­stra­tions could cre­ate the im­pres­sion that the Gov­ern­ment is seek­ing to sup­press dis­sent.

“We re­al­ly hope that is not the main pur­pose, to shut down dis­sent, the ex­pres­sion of dis­sent. But on the ev­i­dence, it is be­ing pushed in that di­rec­tion.”

Mean­while, the Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Work­ers’ Union Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al Joanne Ogeer said the union con­demns the no-protest zones im­ple­ment­ed.

“Well, the Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Work­ers’ Union main­tains our po­si­tion. It is a very dra­con­ian and op­pres­sive move by the Gov­ern­ment. And as I can re­call, this is the same Prime Min­is­ter who, when she sat in the op­po­si­tion, en­cour­aged protest demon­stra­tions in sup­port of trade unions. And now again, we are say­ing, be­cause she sits in the seat of pow­er, how has she for­got­ten?”

Ogeer said the union will be try­ing to get the PM’s at­ten­tion.

“So we con­tin­ue to speak with our at­tor­neys and we will seek the best out­come in fur­ther­ance of our ac­tion on Tues­day, which we will be de­liv­er­ing a let­ter to the Prime Min­is­ter with the hope that we can meet and have some type of re­sult for this.”