Low turnout marks May Day in San Fernando

Gath­ered at the Oil­field Work­ers Trade Union build­ing at the Para­mount Build­ing in San Fer­nan­do, Con­trac­tors and Gen­er­al Work­ers Trade Union pres­i­dent ex­pressed dis­ap­point­ment over the low num­bers as she re­mind­ed work­ers that May Day is root­ed in strug­gle and sac­ri­fice, from the fight for the eight-hour work­day to his­toric clash­es be­tween work­ers and po­lice. She stressed that the day is more than a cal­en­dar event, say­ing it re­mains a sym­bol of re­sis­tance, hope and the on­go­ing fight for de­cent wages and bet­ter work­ing con­di­tions.

Move­ment for So­cial Jus­tice pres­i­dent David Ab­du­lah al­so spoke about the low turnout of work­ers:

“If work­ers were con­scious they would come out not on­ly as com­rade chair­man said, when they’re wait­ing to see what mon­ey they’re get­ting, or if they have a trade dis­pute. Work­ers would come out when they’re con­scious, be­cause they un­der­stand at all times what is their in­ter­est. Their in­ter­est is not on­ly about their per­son­al in­di­vid­ual cir­cum­stance, their in­ter­est is the in­ter­est of the en­tire work­ing class.”

Ab­du­lah al­so crit­i­cised the lack of uni­ty among trade unions, say­ing more or­gan­i­sa­tions should have come to­geth­er, even sym­bol­i­cal­ly, to demon­strate sol­i­dar­i­ty. He re­called that in his speech last year he ad­vised the trade union move­ment and the work­ing class not to al­low them­selves to be di­vid­ed by par­ty pol­i­tics.

De­fend­ing the union’s in­volve­ment in pol­i­tics, Pres­i­dent Gen­er­al of the Na­tion­al Union of Gov­ern­ment and Fed­er­at­ed Work­ers (NUGFW), Christo­pher Streete, not­ed that pow­er is gained through pol­i­tics.

“We talkign about the reigns of pow­er. It have peo­ple who dont want the union to be in­volved in no pol­i­tics i can’t un­der­stand be­cause we saw in grain in the par­ty pol­i­tics. We­dont un­der­stand if we are to get pow­er it has to be through that means.”

Among those in at­ten­dance were the Postal Work­ers Union, Fire Ser­vice As­so­ci­a­tion, Trans­port and In­dus­tri­al Work­ers Union, TT Uni­fied Teach­ers As­so­ci­a­tion, Sea­men and Wa­ter­front Work­ers Trade Union, Na­tion­al Union of Gov­ern­ment and Fed­er­at­ed Work­ers and Farm­ers Union As­so­ci­a­tion. They marched from Cir­cu­lar Road to Har­ris Prom­e­nade, through the streets of San Fer­nan­do, call­ing for the strug­gle for work­ers’ rights to con­tin­ue.