Workers take to the streets of Port of Spain

CHESTER SAM­BRA­NO

Lead Ed­i­tor – News­gath­er­ing

Work­ers took to the streets of Port of Spain to­day as 12 trade unions mo­bilised for a march, which start­ed short­ly af­ter 9am at Memo­r­i­al Park. Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les, Op­po­si­tion MP Stu­art Young, Pa­tri­ot­ic Front po­lit­i­cal leader Mick­ela Pan­day and oth­er mem­bers of the Op­po­si­tion PNM were among those present.

The march is on­go­ing, with pro­test­ers tak­ing their con­cerns to the streets amid grow­ing crit­i­cism of the Gov­ern­ment and wage ne­go­ti­a­tions.

The 12 unions ex­pect­ed to par­tic­i­pate in the march are the Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Work­ers’ Union (CWU), Steel Work­ers’ Union of Trinidad and To­ba­go, Avi­a­tion, Com­mu­ni­ca­tion and Al­lied Work­ers’ Union, Sea­men and Wa­ter­front Work­ers Trade Union (SWW­TU), Es­tate Po­lice As­so­ci­a­tion, Trinidad and To­ba­go Uni­fied Teach­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion (TTUTA), Bank­ing, In­sur­ance and Gen­er­al Work­ers’ Union, Amal­ga­mat­ed Work­ers Union, Prison Of­fi­cers’ As­so­ci­a­tion, Trinidad and To­ba­go Reg­is­tered Nurs­es As­so­ci­a­tion (TTR­NA), Maxi Taxi As­so­ci­a­tion and Con­trac­tors and Gen­er­al Work­ers’ Trade Union.

Young said he had joined the march as a cit­i­zen of Trinidad and To­ba­go, de­scrib­ing it as “a wor­thy march”.

He said Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar would do well to re­mem­ber that it was her Gov­ern­ment that first used trade unions on the cam­paign trail.

Beck­les al­so dis­missed sug­ges­tions that the protest was dri­ven by racial ten­sions or vi­o­lent in­ten­tions, say­ing peo­ple were be­gin­ning to stand up for their rights.

She called on Per­sad-Bisses­sar to stop us­ing what she de­scribed as di­vi­sive lan­guage to at­tack peo­ple who dis­agreed with her.

Beck­les’ com­ments came amid an on­go­ing ex­change be­tween the Prime Min­is­ter and trade union lead­ers over the planned protest, with Per­sad-Bisses­sar pre­vi­ous­ly ac­cus­ing par­tic­i­pat­ing unions and PNM politi­cians of be­ing dri­ven by “racial and po­lit­i­cal ha­tred” of the UNC.

One OW­TU mem­ber who at­tend­ed the march ex­pressed dis­sat­is­fac­tion with the union’s lead­er­ship, say­ing that while its lead­er­ship might be in part­ner­ship with the Gov­ern­ment, he was not.

He said he was un­hap­py with the state of the coun­try and ac­cused the union’s lead­er­ship of be­com­ing too close to the Prime Min­is­ter.

He summed up his dis­sat­is­fac­tion by say­ing the lead­er­ship had “got one kiss from the Prime Min­is­ter and he took it for love”.