Yvonne Ba­boolal

The at­tempt­ed rape of trade union­ist Vin­cent Cabr­era's daugh­ter last Sat­ur­day has led him to call on em­ploy­ers to make spe­cial pro­vi­sions to pro­tect em­ploy­ees who work late shifts. Cabr­era, pres­i­dent gen­er­al of the Bank­ing, In­sur­ance and Gen­er­al Work­ers Union (BIG­WU), made the call yes­ter­day dur­ing the launch of an ed­u­ca­tion sem­i­nar for shop stew­ards at the union's Barataria head­quar­ters.

Ad­dress­ing the young union rep­re­sen­ta­tives, Cabr­era dis­closed: "My daugh­ter was near­ly raped at her Va­len­cia home. "She was or­dered to take off her un­der­wear and told if she made any noise he (the at­tack­er) would kill every­body in the house. She start­ed to bawl and he ran away."

Cabr­era lat­er told the T&T Guardian his daugh­ter was a sin­gle 30-year-old moth­er of three girls. She lived with her moth­er. "There are no men in the house," he added. Va­len­cia Po­lice last Mon­day warned women who live alone to be on the look­out for three sex­u­al preda­tors who were re­cent­ly re­leased from prison.

The po­lice said the man sus­pect­ed of the at­tempt­ed rape of Cabr­era's daugh­ter al­so tried to at­tack an­oth­er woman in the Va­len­cia area two hours lat­er that same day. Cabr­era said some em­ploy­ers did not en­sure work­ers who cov­er late shifts were pro­tect­ed. He re­called dur­ing that last pe­ri­od of ne­go­ti­a­tions with a dai­ly news­pa­per the union pro­posed a shut­tle ser­vice to take late shift work­ers to their homes but the com­pa­ny fell short in im­ple­ment­ing the pro­pos­al.

"They were just drop­ping work­ers at the Croisee (in San Juan)," he said. Fur­ther, women who are at­tacked by sex of­fend­ers need­ed time off to go to the po­lice and to seek coun­selling, Cabr­era added. He made the com­ments dur­ing an ad­dress to young shop stew­ards at an ed­u­ca­tion sem­i­nar, ti­tled "Or­gan­is­ing Work­ers to Com­bat Glob­al Chal­lenges."

He said over the next few days the union rep­re­sen­ta­tives would be ed­u­cat­ed on how to unionise mem­bers of a work­place and mo­bilise them to come out and demon­strate. They al­so would be taught how to han­dle griev­ances, he added. Cabr­era said the shop stew­ards need­ed to un­der­stand they worked in an en­vi­ron­ment and in the wider so­ci­ety that were hos­tile to trade union­ism.

"Man­agers do not like trade unions and they nev­er will," he added. Cabr­era took an­oth­er shot at a sec­ond me­dia com­pa­ny for an ed­i­to­r­i­al which crit­i­cised Oil­fields Work­ers' Trade Union pres­i­dent An­cel Ro­get. "The ed­i­to­r­i­al said Ro­get's 'lat­est blun­der' had lit­tle to do with na­tion­al or work­ers' in­ter­est but on­ly with pre­serv­ing the union," he said.

He al­so crit­i­cised politi­cians who at­tacked the trade union move­ment. Com­ment­ing on the sem­i­nar's theme, Cabr­era said hu­man re­source man­age­ment was a re­sult of the glob­al­i­sa­tion of the work­place. He charged that in hu­man re­source man­age­ment, the rights of the in­di­vid­ual were not recog­nised but on­ly the ob­jec­tives of the com­pa­ny.

He added: "Hu­man re­source is not about the em­pow­er­ment of work­ers. "We are go­ing to train you to man­age any man­ag­er they send."