Annisette calls for labour unity amid divisions over protest

Akash Sama­roo

Lead Ed­i­tor-Pol­i­tics

akash.sama­[email protected]

Na­tion­al Trade Union Cen­tre (NATUC) gen­er­al sec­re­tary Michael An­nisette is call­ing on trade union lead­ers to set­tle their dif­fer­ences pri­vate­ly and present a unit­ed front in de­fence of work­ers, amid signs of di­vi­sion with­in the labour move­ment fol­low­ing Fri­day’s protest against the Gov­ern­ment.

An­nisette’s ap­peal comes as he ac­knowl­edged that five unions, in­clud­ing three ma­jor labour or­gan­i­sa­tions, did not par­tic­i­pate in the demon­stra­tion, while dis­miss­ing crit­i­cism from fel­low trade union­ists over his de­ci­sion to march.

Speak­ing on CNC3’s The Morn­ing Brew pro­gramme yes­ter­day, An­nisette was ques­tioned about crit­i­cism from the Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion (PSA) and whether po­lit­i­cal al­le­giances were cre­at­ing di­vi­sions with­in or­gan­ised labour.

He de­clined to en­gage in a pub­lic con­fronta­tion, in­sist­ing that dis­agree­ments should be re­solved in­ter­nal­ly.

“We must be ma­ture enough as labour lead­ers to agree to dis­agree. We have dis­agree­ment. We meet among our­selves and we ham­mer it out,” he said.

“And when we go out in the pub­lic, we speak with one voice in the de­fence of the work­ing class.”

An­nisette said he would not al­low crit­i­cism from oth­er union lead­ers or po­lit­i­cal quar­ters to dis­tract him from rep­re­sent­ing work­ers.

He al­so ac­knowl­edged that the ab­sence of sev­er­al unions had af­fect­ed the com­po­si­tion of Fri­day’s demon­stra­tion but ar­gued that the turnout re­mained sig­nif­i­cant.

An­nisette did not iden­ti­fy the ab­sent unions or ex­plain their rea­sons for stay­ing away.

He re­ject­ed Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s char­ac­ter­i­sa­tion of the march as a fail­ure, in­sist­ing that the labour move­ment, rather than the Gov­ern­ment, would de­ter­mine whether its ob­jec­tives had been achieved.

De­spite the ex­changes be­tween the Prime Min­is­ter and trade union lead­ers, An­nisette said or­gan­ised labour re­mained ready for di­a­logue.

“We are will­ing to meet with the Prime Min­is­ter to­mor­row in or­der to ad­dress the is­sues that af­fect work­ers,” he said.

Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day asked the Prime Min­is­ter if she would per­son­al­ly meet with the unions to dis­cuss their con­cerns. No re­sponse came up to press time.

An­nisette main­tained that so­cial di­a­logue and col­lab­o­ra­tion were es­sen­tial to re­solv­ing in­dus­tri­al re­la­tions dis­putes, even where fun­da­men­tal dis­agree­ments ex­ist­ed.

Mean­while, Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Work­ers’ Union (CWU) leader Ogeer has re­vealed that she per­son­al­ly in­ter­vened to pre­vent in­di­vid­u­als from oth­er groups from tak­ing the lead with­in her union’s con­tin­gent dur­ing Fri­day’s march.

Re­spond­ing to ques­tions from Guardian Me­dia, Ogeer in­sist­ed that the unions had not in­vit­ed the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) to par­tic­i­pate and that Op­po­si­tion politi­cians at­tend­ed in­de­pen­dent­ly.

Ogeer said she made it clear that the CWU would not al­low the demon­stra­tion to be­come a plat­form for po­lit­i­cal op­por­tunism.

“When per­sons from dif­fer­ent groups at­tempt­ed to fall in or lead CWU, I was clear that there will not be any po­lit­i­cal hi­jack­ing or PR stunt.”

She said those par­tic­i­pat­ing as or­di­nary cit­i­zens were in­struct­ed to move to the back.

Ogeer al­so ex­pressed will­ing­ness to meet Per­sad-Bisses­sar, say­ing the CWU had al­ways been pre­pared for mean­ing­ful dis­cus­sions.

How­ev­er, she main­tained that the Prime Min­is­ter had pre­vi­ous­ly ac­knowl­edged the union’s cor­re­spon­dence with­out agree­ing to meet.

“As it stands right at this mo­ment, should the PM ac­qui­esce, we’re avail­able to meet,” she said.

Ogeer said dis­cus­sions should ad­dress con­cerns about TSTT’s sus­tain­abil­i­ty, par­tic­u­lar­ly Am­plia’s op­er­a­tions, and the pro­posed sale of the Hilton Trinidad and Con­fer­ence Cen­tre.

“Di­a­logue is healthy, but it must come with some mod­icum of open­ness and frank forth­right en­gage­ment by par­ties with mu­tu­al re­spect,” she said.