Kangaloo urges vigilance and fairness on Labour Day

Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo has un­der­scored both grat­i­tude and vig­i­lance in ho­n­our­ing the na­tion’s work­ers.

In her Labour Day mes­sage, Kan­ga­loo re­flect­ed on the sac­ri­fices of labour pi­o­neers whose courage re­shaped Trinidad and To­ba­go’s so­cial and eco­nom­ic land­scape, par­tic­u­lar­ly dur­ing the piv­otal events of 1937.

She paid trib­ute to fig­ures such as Uri­ah “Buzz” But­ler, Adri­an Co­la Rien­zi, An­drew Arthur Cipri­ani and Al­bert Maria Gomes, not­ing that their lead­er­ship and ad­vo­ca­cy ex­tend­ed be­yond im­proved work­ing con­di­tions.

Ac­cord­ing to Kan­ga­loo, their lega­cy lies in teach­ing the na­tion that no per­son’s worth should be de­ter­mined by rank, race, re­li­gion or so­cial stand­ing.

These gains, she em­pha­sised, are em­bed­ded in the Re­pub­lic’s laws, in­sti­tu­tions and col­lec­tive re­spect for one an­oth­er.

Yet, Kan­ga­loo cau­tioned that these achieve­ments are not self-sus­tain­ing.

“They are weak­ened,” she said, “when­ev­er pub­lic dis­course di­vides cit­i­zens by an­ces­try, when dis­agree­ments frac­ture com­mu­ni­ties, or when in­di­vid­u­als face in­tim­i­da­tion in the hon­est per­for­mance of their du­ties. Labour Day, there­fore, is not on­ly a time for grat­i­tude but al­so a re­minder of the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to safe­guard dig­ni­ty in both work and cit­i­zen­ship.”

The Pres­i­dent urged cit­i­zens to em­brace dis­ci­plined dis­agree­ment and re­spect­ful di­a­logue, stress­ing that the choice is not be­tween si­lence and hos­til­i­ty, but be­tween ser­vice and con­tempt.

She called on the labour move­ment, em­ploy­ers, pub­lic in­sti­tu­tions and cit­i­zens to re­new a na­tion­al com­mit­ment: in­clu­sion for every cit­i­zen, safe­ty in every work­place and fair­ness for every work­er.

Kan­ga­loo warned that when any group or com­mu­ni­ty is di­min­ished, the en­tire Re­pub­lic suf­fers.

“Sim­i­lar­ly, when any work­er is made un­safe, pro­tec­tions for all are un­der­mined.”

To tru­ly ho­n­our the pi­o­neers of the labour move­ment, she said, the na­tion must de­fend the dig­ni­ty they fought to se­cure, rather than al­low di­vi­sions to un­do their lega­cy.

Con­clud­ing her mes­sage, Kan­ga­loo ex­tend­ed best wish­es to the na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty for a safe and pur­pose­ful Labour Day.

She ex­pressed hope that the prayers, ef­forts and good works of the peo­ple would con­tin­ue to draw the na­tion clos­er to­geth­er, re­mind­ing cit­i­zens that to ho­n­our labour is to pro­tect the very ground on which it stands.