Beckles: Unions welcomed for votes, condemned for protesting

Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les has ac­cused Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar of hypocrisy for con­demn­ing protest­ing trade unions af­ter bring­ing unions and oth­er groups un­der the UNC’s po­lit­i­cal um­brel­la to help win an elec­tion.

In a state­ment, Beck­les point­ed to Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s launch of the Coali­tion of In­ter­ests, ques­tion­ing why or­gan­i­sa­tions pre­vi­ous­ly wel­comed by the UNC were now be­ing ac­cused of po­lit­i­cal and racial ha­tred for de­mand­ing ac­count­abil­i­ty.

“The same unions that were wel­comed when they served the UNC’s po­lit­i­cal in­ter­ests are now be­ing con­demned when they de­mand ac­count­abil­i­ty,” Beck­les said.

Her com­ments fol­lowed a state­ment by Per­sad-Bisses­sar ahead of a planned trade union protest in Port of Spain to­day, in which the Prime Min­is­ter ac­cused par­tic­i­pat­ing unions and PNM politi­cians of be­ing dri­ven by “racial and po­lit­i­cal ha­tred” of the UNC.

Beck­les ac­cused the Gov­ern­ment of seek­ing to in­tim­i­date and dis­cred­it unions ex­er­cis­ing their right to protest, de­scrib­ing such con­duct as “un­con­sti­tu­tion­al, un­for­tu­nate and un­ac­cept­able”.

The Op­po­si­tion Leader said the Prime Min­is­ter should an­swer ques­tions about her ad­min­is­tra­tion’s per­for­mance and its com­mit­ments to work­ers rather than chal­lenge the mo­tives of those protest­ing.

She al­so re­ject­ed what she de­scribed as Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s iden­ti­fi­ca­tion of her­self as an “In­di­an Prime Min­is­ter”, in­sist­ing that the of­fice rep­re­sents every cit­i­zen, re­gard­less of eth­nic­i­ty.

“Madam Prime Min­is­ter, WE HAVE A TRIN­BAG­ON­IAN PRIME MIN­IS­TER, NOT AN ‘IN­DI­AN PRIME MIN­IS­TER,’” Beck­les said.

“You are the Prime Min­is­ter of Trinidad and To­ba­go, not of one race or eth­nic group.”

Beck­les in­voked the na­tion­al an­them’s as­sur­ance that “every creed and race find an equal place” and said the ti­tle of In­di­an Prime Min­is­ter be­longed to Naren­dra Mo­di.

“I re­mind the Prime Min­is­ter that race must nev­er be a shield against ac­count­abil­i­ty or a weapon to di­vide our peo­ple,” she said.

“Our di­ver­si­ty is our her­itage, our uni­ty is our strength, and racial di­vi­sion has no place in our pol­i­tics.”

The Op­po­si­tion Leader al­so chal­lenged the Gov­ern­ment over salary ne­go­ti­a­tions, al­leg­ing that work­ers promised a 10% in­crease dur­ing the 2025 elec­tion cam­paign were now be­ing of­fered 4%.

“Where is the 10% cash you promised?” she asked.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar claimed unions had failed to protest against the pre­vi­ous PNM ad­min­is­tra­tion over out­stand­ing salary in­creas­es and back­pay, but were now mo­bil­is­ing against a gov­ern­ment de­liv­er­ing ben­e­fits to work­ers.

She said her ad­min­is­tra­tion was pay­ing back­pay, up­dat­ing salaries, of­fer­ing 10% in­creas­es and pass­ing leg­is­la­tion to pro­tect work­ers.

The Prime Min­is­ter al­so urged cit­i­zens to avoid the protest route, warn­ing that par­tic­i­pants might seek to pro­voke con­fronta­tion.