The Na­tion­al Work­ers Union (NWU) has ex­pressed con­cern about the use of Sec­tion 63 of the In­dus­tri­al Re­la­tions Act (IRA) to or­der Petrotrin work­ers back to work.

"It sug­gests that the gov­ern­ment, which was beat­en back last year in its at­tempt to put a cap on wages in the pub­lic sec­tor, has be­come em­bold­ened as it re­news its as­sault on the work­ing class in its at­tempt to force work­ing peo­ple to bear the bur­den of the cri­sis of in­ter­na­tion­al cap­i­tal­ism," the union said in a state­ment, adding that the use of Sec­tion 63 "con­firms the re­pres­sive na­ture of the IRA".

The NWU urged the labour sec­tor to pay close at­ten­tion to the is­sues that may arise in the af­ter­math of the In­dus­tri­al Court or­der­ing Petrotrin work­ers back to work as the IRA ex­pos­es the Oil­fields Work­ers Trade Union (OW­TU) to de­cer­ti­fi­ca­tion as the recog­nised ma­jor­i­ty Union for the work­ers and ex­pos­es work­er in­volved in the in­dus­tri­al ac­tion to dis­missal.

The NWU call for the trade union move­ment to go on red alert to de­fend the OW­TU just as they had in the past de­fend­ed the Trans­port and In­dus­tri­al Work­ers Union and the Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Work­ers Union when the PNM gov­ern­ment at­tempt­ed to de­cer­ti­fy those unions at PTSC and TSTT."This lat­est as­sault on the rights of work­ers con­firms the long-held po­si­tion of the Na­tion­al Work­ers Union and the trade union move­ment that the In­dus­tri­al Re­la­tions Act must be re­pealed," the state­ment con­tin­ued.

"It de­fines how, when and un­der what con­di­tions work­ers may with­hold their labour; it de­nies work­ers in so-called es­sen­tial ser­vices the right to strike; through its es­sen­tial in­dus­tries pro­vi­sion it vi­o­lates free­dom of as­so­ci­a­tion by deny­ing work­ers the right to join a trade union of their choice; it pro­vides em­ploy­ers and the state with a mech­a­nism to de­cer­ti­fy trade unions while not pro­vid­ing unions any coun­ter­vail­ing mech­a­nism to deal with em­ploy­ers."