NATUC, JTUM condemn police action during Labour Day celebrations

The Na­tion­al Trade Union Cen­tre of Trinidad and To­ba­go (NATUC) and the Joint Trade Union Move­ment (JTUM) have con­demned what they de­scribed as ex­ces­sive po­lice ac­tion dur­ing Labour Day cel­e­bra­tions in Fyz­abad on June 19.

In a joint state­ment, the or­gan­i­sa­tions ex­pressed con­cern over the armed po­lice pres­ence dur­ing the event, say­ing Labour Day should re­main a space where work­ers and cit­i­zens can peace­ful­ly ex­press their views.

“Labour Day is a sa­cred oc­ca­sion for work­ers and their fam­i­lies. It is a day that com­mem­o­rates the strug­gles, sac­ri­fices, and achieve­ments of the work­ing class and serves as a plat­form for the free and de­mo­c­ra­t­ic ex­pres­sion of work­ers' views and con­cerns,” the state­ment said.

The trade union bod­ies said while they ac­knowl­edged that per­mis­sion was grant­ed for the Labour Day march, it had be­come cus­tom­ary over the years for non-union groups and in­di­vid­u­als to par­tic­i­pate in the cel­e­bra­tions.

The state­ment ad­dressed the ar­rest of ac­tivist Alyssa Phillips and her moth­er, Camille Cares­quero.

NATUC Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary Michael An­nisette said he wit­nessed the de­ten­tion and claimed cer­tain po­lice of­fi­cers phys­i­cal­ly roughed up the two women and pushed aside his teenage daugh­ter while try­ing to de­tain Phillips.

“These three women did not de­serve to be treat­ed like com­mon crim­i­nals. The ex­ces­sive ac­tions of the po­lice were to­tal­ly un­called for, whol­ly un­ac­cept­able and can­not be jus­ti­fied un­der any cir­cum­stances be­cause the peace­ful ac­tions of these three women posed no se­cu­ri­ty threat or threat to the safe­ty of the pub­lic,” the state­ment said.

NATUC and JTUM said law en­force­ment au­thor­i­ties have a re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to main­tain pub­lic or­der while re­spect­ing cit­i­zens’ con­sti­tu­tion­al rights and dig­ni­ty.

The or­gan­i­sa­tions said the use of in­tim­i­da­tion, ex­ces­sive force, or ac­tions that cre­ate fear among par­tic­i­pants un­der­mines pub­lic con­fi­dence in the po­lice ser­vice.

They added that con­cerns held by the po­lice could have been han­dled dif­fer­ent­ly, while pre­serv­ing the sig­nif­i­cance of Labour Day.

“Labour Day be­longs to the work­ers of Trinidad and To­ba­go. It must nev­er be­come an oc­ca­sion where cit­i­zens feel threat­ened or in­tim­i­dat­ed for peace­ful­ly ex­press­ing their views.”