PM hails workers’ contributions; reaffirms commitment to labour agenda

Jesse Ramdeo

Se­nior Re­porter

[email protected]

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.

Speak­ing in Par­lia­ment yes­ter­day, ahead of to­day’s Labour Day hol­i­day, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the coun­try’s de­vel­op­ment has been built on the sac­ri­fices of gen­er­a­tions of work­ers.

“As Trinidad and To­ba­go com­mem­o­rates Labour Day, we ho­n­our the gen­er­a­tions of work­ing men and women whose toil, sac­ri­fice and de­ter­mi­na­tion built the na­tion we proud­ly call home,” the Prime Min­is­ter said.

She not­ed that Labour Day serves as a re­minder that work­ers’ rights and pro­tec­tions were hard fought and not freely giv­en.

“Labour Day re­minds us that the rights, pro­tec­tions and op­por­tu­ni­ties en­joyed by work­ers to­day were not freely grant­ed. They were earned through strug­gle, sac­ri­fice and per­se­ver­ance by or­di­nary peo­ple who re­fused to ac­cept in­jus­tice as their lot,” she said.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar re­flect­ed on the coun­try’s labour his­to­ry, re­call­ing the strug­gles of work­ers dur­ing the Great De­pres­sion and the labour dis­tur­bances of the 1930s, which she said helped strength­en or­gan­ised labour and ad­vance po­lit­i­cal re­form.

She paid trib­ute to labour pi­o­neers in­clud­ing Tubal Uri­ah But­ler, Cap­tain Arthur An­drew Cipri­ani, Adri­an Co­la Rien­zi, El­ma Fran­cois, George Weekes and CLR James, as well as thou­sands of un­named work­ers whose sac­ri­fices helped shape the na­tion.

The Prime Min­is­ter al­so high­light­ed the role of work­er uni­ty in over­com­ing so­cial and eco­nom­ic di­vi­sions.

“One of the most en­dur­ing lessons of our labour his­to­ry is that progress was achieved when or­di­nary peo­ple stood to­geth­er,” she said. “That uni­ty chal­lenged in­jus­tice, weak­ened di­vi­sion and helped build a stronger and more de­mo­c­ra­t­ic Trinidad and To­ba­go.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar al­so ac­knowl­edged To­ba­go’s con­tri­bu­tion to the labour move­ment, de­scrib­ing the Bel­man­na Ri­ots of 1876 as a pow­er­ful sym­bol of the strug­gle for dig­ni­ty, jus­tice and op­por­tu­ni­ty.

As it per­tained to the  Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress’ re­la­tion­ship with or­gan­ised labour, the Prime Min­is­ter said the par­ty’s roots are close­ly tied to the labour move­ment and the ad­vo­ca­cy of its founder, for­mer Prime Min­is­ter Bas­deo Pan­day.

“He un­der­stood that pros­per­i­ty must be shared and that work­ing peo­ple must nev­er be left be­hind,” she said.

The Prime Min­is­ter point­ed to sev­er­al labour achieve­ments un­der pre­vi­ous UNC ad­min­is­tra­tions, in­clud­ing the in­tro­duc­tion of the Min­i­mum Wages Act and pro­tec­tions for work­ers dur­ing re­struc­tur­ing with­in the Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ties. She al­so ref­er­enced col­lec­tive agree­ments con­clud­ed be­tween Petrotrin and the Oil­fields Work­ers’ Trade Union dur­ing her first term in of­fice.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said work­ers again played a de­ci­sive role in shap­ing the coun­try’s fu­ture dur­ing the 2025 Gen­er­al Elec­tion.

“On April 28, 2025, work­ers once again helped shape the des­tiny of Trinidad and To­ba­go,” she said. “They vot­ed for our UNC Coali­tion Gov­ern­ment that un­der­stood that work­ers must once again be placed at the cen­tre of na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment.”

The Prime Min­is­ter high­light­ed sev­er­al ac­com­plish­ments un­der the Gov­ern­ment’s Work­ers’ Agen­da, in­clud­ing wage set­tle­ments af­fect­ing near­ly 40,000 pub­lic sec­tor em­ploy­ees, bil­lions of dol­lars in ar­rears and back­pay pay­ments, re­forms to labour leg­is­la­tion, and the cre­ation of more than 23,000 em­ploy­ment op­por­tu­ni­ties through Gov­ern­ment pro­grammes.

She said the Gov­ern­ment re­mains fo­cused on re­open­ing the Petrotrin re­fin­ery, strength­en­ing pro­tec­tions for vul­ner­a­ble work­ers, cre­at­ing jobs in rur­al com­mu­ni­ties and de­liv­er­ing fur­ther re­lief mea­sures in the 2027 Bud­get.