Steel Workers Union backs Ogeer amid ‘personal attacks’

Steel Work­ers Union of Trinidad and To­ba­go pres­i­dent Tim­o­thy Bai­ley has con­demned what he de­scribes as per­son­al at­tacks against Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Work­ers’ Union (CWU) sec­re­tary gen­er­al Joanne Ogeer, warn­ing that union lead­ers must be free to de­mand ac­count­abil­i­ty with­out in­tim­i­da­tion.

Bai­ley pledged his union’s sup­port for Ogeer, the CWU ex­ec­u­tive and its mem­ber­ship, say­ing ques­tions about ex­pen­di­ture and gov­er­nance at TSTT should be an­swered through con­struc­tive di­a­logue.

“When any trade union­ist is at­tacked for ask­ing le­git­i­mate ques­tions, our an­swer re­mains: YOU TOUCH ONE — YOU TOUCH ALL!” Bai­ley said in a state­ment is­sued on Sep­tem­ber 18.

His com­ments fol­lowed what he de­scribed as re­cent de­vel­op­ments in­volv­ing the Min­is­ter of Pub­lic Util­i­ties, mem­bers of TSTT’s man­age­ment, the CWU and Ogeer.

Bai­ley said the CWU had raised le­git­i­mate ques­tions about trans­paren­cy, ac­count­abil­i­ty, ex­pen­di­ture, de­ci­sion-mak­ing and gov­er­nance at the com­pa­ny, in­clud­ing calls for dis­clo­sure and scruti­ny of man­age­r­i­al prac­tices.

“These are mat­ters that any re­spon­si­ble Recog­nised Ma­jor­i­ty Union rep­re­sent­ing work­ers is en­ti­tled to pur­sue,” he said.

Bai­ley main­tained that dis­agree­ments with a trade union should nev­er be­come the per­son­al tar­get­ing of its rep­re­sen­ta­tives.

“We there­fore state un­equiv­o­cal­ly that per­son­al at­tacks di­rect­ed at Com­rade Sis­ter Joanne Ogeer are un­ac­cept­able to the Trade Union Move­ment,” he said.

The state­ment did not iden­ti­fy the spe­cif­ic re­marks or in­ci­dents Bai­ley con­sid­ered per­son­al at­tacks.

How­ev­er, he warned against any use of pub­lic of­fice that could dis­cour­age work­ers’ rep­re­sen­ta­tives from rais­ing con­cerns.

“Pub­lic of­fice should nev­er be used in any man­ner that could rea­son­ably be per­ceived as in­tim­i­dat­ing a trade union rep­re­sen­ta­tive from ask­ing ques­tions on be­half of work­ers. It should pro­mote con­struc­tive di­a­logue and re­spon­si­ble dis­cus­sion,” Bai­ley said.

He ar­gued that trade unions had a re­spon­si­bil­i­ty ex­tend­ing be­yond ne­go­ti­at­ing salaries and ben­e­fits, in­clud­ing ques­tion­ing gov­ern­ments, cor­po­ra­tions and pow­er­ful eco­nom­ic in­ter­ests over de­ci­sions af­fect­ing work­ers.

“They do not ex­ist mere­ly to ne­go­ti­ate wages; they ex­ist to de­fend work­ers and chal­lenge de­ci­sions that af­fect them,” he said.

Bai­ley said the Steel Work­ers Union stood be­side the CWU in de­fence of the in­de­pen­dence and in­tegri­ty of or­gan­ised labour.

“The Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Work­ers’ Union does not stand alone. Com­rade Sis­ter Joanne Ogeer does not stand alone,” he said.

Guardian Me­dia’s calls to the Min­is­ter of Pub­lic Util­i­ties Bar­ry Padarath for com­ment went unan­swered.