I am ap­palled by the fact that the Min­is­ter of Labour, an elect­ed rep­re­sen­ta­tive and mem­ber of the Cab­i­net, ac­tu­al­ly be­lieves he can take "an im­par­tial stand" in the five per cent of­fer to labour unions. The Prime Min­is­ter as leader of the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship, head of Gov­ern­ment and chair­man of Cab­i­net ap­point­ed McLeod as Min­is­ter of Labour to serve a na­tion­al in­ter­est as de­lib­er­at­ed, de­cid­ed and ex­e­cut­ed joint­ly by the Cab­i­net. McLeod can­not now want to act like a one-man show and take him­self out of a labour-re­lat­ed is­sue.

McLeod, if he doesn't al­ready un­der­stand, needs a crash course in col­lec­tive re­spon­si­bil­i­ty and needs to un­der­stand his re­spon­si­bil­i­ty as a Cab­i­net min­is­ter with re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for labour. He is no longer a union pres­i­dent gen­er­al. He is no longer a union com­rade. He is the Min­is­ter of Labour, an­swer­able to a head of Gov­ern­ment. In Cab­i­net, all na­tion­al is­sues are dis­cussed and I am sure is­sues of T&T's fi­nances and econ­o­my are dis­cussed. So he is not with­out suf­fi­cient in­for­ma­tion on the state of T&T's fi­nances and whether the coun­try can af­ford high wage in­creas­es.

I al­so find it ir­re­spon­si­ble that as Labour Min­is­ter, McLeod seems un­will­ing to in­tro­duce "val­ue for mon­ey" and "pro­duc­tiv­i­ty" in­to this wage in­crease is­sue. As Labour Min­is­ter one would think that such a dis­cus­sion would have been a pri­or­i­ty rather than rou­tine in­creas­es be­cause the union marched and protest­ed. McLeod must make clear whether he is stand­ing with the Gov­ern­ment or against it. There is no mid­dle ground.

Randy Ar­joon

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