Unions seek legal advice over Labour Day arrests

Ot­to Car­ring­ton

Se­nior Re­porter

ot­to.car­ring­[email protected]

The trade union move­ment is seek­ing le­gal ad­vice from a se­nior con­sti­tu­tion­al at­tor­ney over the ar­rest of ac­tivist Trade Unions Move to Chal­lenge Labour Day Po­lice Ac­tion and her moth­er dur­ing Labour Day cel­e­bra­tions in Fyz­abad, with Na­tion­al Trade Union Cen­tre (NATUC) Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary Michael An­nisette warn­ing that the in­ci­dent rais­es se­ri­ous con­sti­tu­tion­al con­cerns and re­flects what he de­scribed as an in­creas­ing­ly em­bold­ened po­lice ser­vice un­der the State of Emer­gency.

Speak­ing at a joint trade union press con­fer­ence yes­ter­day, An­nisette said labour lead­ers have en­gaged a se­nior coun­sel to re­view the events of June 19 and ad­vise on pos­si­ble le­gal ac­tion.

“I could as­sure you that we are en­gag­ing a se­nior coun­sel to take an overview of all what has hap­pened to ad­vise us as a labour move­ment how to move for­ward in this mat­ter,” An­nisette said.

“This is not a sim­ple mat­ter. I be­lieve it has some con­sti­tu­tion­al is­sues in what tran­spired. I’m not go­ing to pro­nounce on it, but we are en­gag­ing se­nior coun­sel to dis­cuss it so that they will guide us in terms of the con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty that we see was breached by the po­lice.”

He said the re­view is a joint ini­tia­tive of the labour move­ment.

“It is a joint ex­er­cise. A well-renowned se­nior coun­sel in con­sti­tu­tion­al law will guide us in terms of what we can do as we move for­ward.”

An­nisette al­so ac­cused po­lice of be­com­ing in­creas­ing­ly ag­gres­sive un­der the cur­rent SoE reg­u­la­tions.

“You see an em­bold­en­ment by the po­lice un­der the State of Emer­gency,” he said.

The vet­er­an trade union­ist re­ject­ed a po­lice state­ment sug­gest­ing Phillip was not au­tho­rised to par­tic­i­pate in the Labour Day pro­ces­sion, in­sist­ing she had been per­son­al­ly in­vit­ed to march with mem­bers of the Sea­men and Wa­ter­front Work­ers’ Trade Union (SWW­TU).

“There is this press re­lease from the po­lice and it seems to sug­gest that I had no au­thor­i­ty to in­vite the young la­dy to march with the Sea­men and Wa­ter­front Work­ers’ Trade Union. Let me tell the po­lice there is noth­ing in the law that speaks to that,” An­nisette said.

He ques­tioned the ba­sis for Phillip’s ar­rest, not­ing that Labour Day cel­e­bra­tions have his­tor­i­cal­ly in­clud­ed ac­tivists, stu­dents, com­mu­ni­ty groups, po­lit­i­cal or­gan­i­sa­tions and mem­bers of the pub­lic.

“Who are the po­lice to de­ter­mine in the 21st cen­tu­ry who is to march with the labour move­ment?” he asked. “Our in­vi­ta­tion con­tin­ues to be, and will con­tin­ue to be, for all so­cial ac­tivists, all so­cial groups and every­body who wants to par­tic­i­pate in Labour Day.”

An­nisette said he re­peat­ed­ly in­formed of­fi­cers that Phillip had been in­vit­ed to march with him and the SWW­TU con­tin­gent, but claimed his ef­forts to en­gage po­lice were ig­nored.

“Can the po­lice de­ny that I made all the ef­forts to en­gage them in dis­cus­sions as it re­lates to the young la­dy? Could they de­ny that I ex­pressed the view that she was in­vit­ed? We have all the cov­er­age. She was march­ing with me peace­ful­ly and she was march­ing with the Sea­men and Wa­ter­front Work­ers’ Trade Union.”

He al­leged that of­fi­cers ap­peared in­tent on tar­get­ing Phillip and her moth­er.

“There was an ar­ro­gance that I have nev­er seen by the po­lice. It was like they had a plan, a se­lec­tive plan, and the plan was to ar­rest the young la­dy and her moth­er.”

An­nisette al­so ques­tioned why ob­jec­tions to non-union par­tic­i­pants were not raised dur­ing plan­ning meet­ings ahead of Labour Day.

“If the po­lice had an in­ten­tion or an ob­jec­tion to oth­er peo­ple oth­er than the trade union move­ment march­ing, why didn’t they say that at the meet­ings that we had? That was nev­er pro­nounced in any of the meet­ings.”

He fur­ther crit­i­cised what he de­scribed as an un­prece­dent­ed se­cu­ri­ty pres­ence at the an­nu­al event.

“For the first time in the his­to­ry of Trinidad and To­ba­go, and I have par­tic­i­pat­ed in Labour Day march­es for years as a young man, I have nev­er seen so much po­lice pres­ence in a Labour Day cel­e­bra­tion. Armed po­lice, ri­ot po­lice too. What was the pur­pose of that? To in­tim­i­date us?”

An­nisette al­so called on the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice to in­ves­ti­gate an in­ci­dent in which his 13-year-old daugh­ter was al­leged­ly pushed aside by of­fi­cers dur­ing the de­ten­tion of Phillip and her moth­er.

“You push my daugh­ter aside like she was a rub­bish bag. How could that be fair? I want the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice to in­ves­ti­gate it be­cause we have it on tape.”

He said the Com­mis­sion­er owed work­ers an apol­o­gy.

“The po­lice com­mis­sion­er owes the work­ing class of Trinidad and To­ba­go an apol­o­gy for the be­hav­iour of the po­lice. If the po­lice are ma­ture enough, they should be ma­ture enough to say, ‘I made a mis­take.’”

Oil­fields Work­ers’ Trade Union (OW­TU) First Vice-Pres­i­dent Sati Ga­jad­har-In­niss al­so con­demned the ar­rests, de­scrib­ing im­ages of Phillip and her moth­er sur­round­ed by ri­ot po­lice as deeply trou­bling.

“As a woman and as a woman in lead­er­ship in the trade union move­ment, I feel very of­fend­ed by what they con­tin­ue to do in our demon­stra­tions. Take your hands off our mem­bers and, in par­tic­u­lar, our women,” she said.

She chal­lenged po­lice claims that Phillip was not au­tho­rised to par­tic­i­pate and called on of­fi­cers to iden­ti­fy who they al­leged­ly con­sult­ed with­in the labour move­ment.

“If the po­lice want to in­volve the Oil­fields Work­ers’ Trade Union, they need to clear­ly iden­ti­fy who they would have spo­ken to and bring the ev­i­dence as such,” she said.

Ga­jad­har-In­niss added that Labour Day march­es do not op­er­ate on the ba­sis of for­mal in­di­vid­ual in­vi­ta­tions, ar­gu­ing that An­nisette’s in­vi­ta­tion should have been suf­fi­cient.

“If Com­rade An­nisette saw the young la­dy on the way and in­vit­ed her to join him on the march, then what gives them the right to say she should not be on it?”

“Then any mem­ber of the pub­lic could have been ar­rest­ed for be­ing on the path­way or join­ing the march from time to time.”

Both lead­ers said Phillip’s ar­rest has broad­er im­pli­ca­tions for free­dom of ex­pres­sion and de­mo­c­ra­t­ic par­tic­i­pa­tion.

De­scrib­ing June 19 as “a sad day”, An­nisette warned that Trinidad and To­ba­go risked slid­ing in­to dan­ger­ous ter­ri­to­ry if peace­ful dis­sent is met with force.

“My fear is I am see­ing the mil­i­tari­sa­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go and it is some­thing we have to pay at­ten­tion to. We can­not ig­nore it.”

“The labour move­ment is the coun­ter­vail­ing pow­er. We will al­ways con­tin­ue to stand up for what is right. We will al­ways ex­press dis­sent­ing views and we will al­ways stand up in de­fence of any­body who ex­press­es a dis­sent­ing view be­cause that is what democ­ra­cy is all about.”

He said the in­ci­dent should serve as a warn­ing.

“We must not al­low any­body to in­tim­i­date us un­der any cir­cum­stances. If we al­low this to seep in­to our cul­ture, then we will be go­ing down a road that we will live to re­gret.”