No-protest zones tying union’s hands, says CGWTU

Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­[email protected]

The Con­trac­tors and Gen­er­al Work­ers Trade Union yes­ter­day said the State of Emer­gency’s no-protest zones have tied its hands, pre­vent­ing it from demon­strat­ing in front of the San Fer­nan­do City Cor­po­ra­tion.

Pres­i­dent Gen­er­al Er­mine De Bique-Meade has ac­cused the City En­gi­neer of de­clar­ing “war” on the union af­ter al­leged­ly ex­clud­ing a shop stew­ard from a meet­ing at City Hall in­volv­ing work­ers in the weld­ing de­part­ment on Sep­tem­ber 9.

She said the shop stew­ard is al­so em­ployed in the weld­ing de­part­ment.

De Bique-Meade said the union ex­ec­u­tive sub­se­quent­ly went to the En­gi­neer’s of­fice to in­ter­vene and try to re­solve the mat­ter, but she al­leged they were met with hos­til­i­ty and po­lice were called.

The union leader said pre­vent­ing the shop stew­ard or ex­ec­u­tive from be­ing present is against the work­ers’ right to union rep­re­sen­ta­tion and pro­tec­tion.

“We are say­ing that once a union has the RMU (Recog­nised Ma­jor­i­ty Union) for work­ers, it is the right if the work­ers re­quest rep­re­sen­ta­tion, for them to get rep­re­sen­ta­tion.”

De Bique-Meade said work­ers have many griev­ances with de­part­ments with­in the cor­po­ra­tion which have been de­clared un­fit by the Oc­cu­pa­tion­al Safe­ty and Health of­fi­cer, and there must be di­a­logue with the union.

“So many things that are not go­ing right. And this is un­der her purview. And she has failed to come to the union to sit and have dis­cus­sion and see how best we could sort out these griev­ances that the work­ers have.”

Un­der usu­al cir­cum­stances, De Bique-Meade said the union’s re­sponse would be to protest in front of City Hall, but they can­not do so be­cause of the re­stric­tions im­posed un­der the State of Emer­gency, since the cor­po­ra­tion is in close prox­im­i­ty to the po­lice sta­tion.

Tak­ing their protest else­where, she said, would not have the de­sired ef­fect.

“And we are see­ing by these zones of no protest, it’s ham­per­ing the func­tion of the trade union move­ment, and this must be re­moved. At no point in time can I re­call that the trade union move­ment was giv­en such a bar­bar­ic treat­ment be­ing dealt out to the labour fra­ter­ni­ty. It can­not be. You can­not be say­ing in one voice that you love the move­ment, or you love some trade unions. It can­not be,” she charged.

She said the Prime Min­is­ter did not take in­to con­sid­er­a­tion that the no-protest zones would ham­per the unions from car­ry­ing out their du­ties ef­fec­tive­ly.

“That shows a lev­el of ig­no­rance be­ing dis­played,” she lament­ed.

When Guardian Me­dia con­tact­ed the City En­gi­neer’s of­fice, an em­ploy­ee said she was on va­ca­tion. Guardian Me­dia al­so left a num­ber with the CEO’s of­fice, re­quest­ing a re­sponse, as the CEO was un­avail­able, but no one re­turned the call.

There are 15 no-protest zones, in­clud­ing gov­ern­ment and de­fence force build­ings.

Un­der the 2026 Emer­gency Pow­ers Or­der, protests and demon­stra­tions are pro­hib­it­ed with­in 500 me­tres of 15 spe­cif­ic lo­ca­tions, one of which is the TTPS Head­quar­ters.

The Op­po­si­tion has in­di­cat­ed that it would not sup­port an ex­ten­sion to the State of Emer­gency, which ex­pires on Thurs­day.