Rhon­da Krys­tal Ram­bal­ly

Pres­i­dent of the Bank­ing, In­sur­ance and Gen­er­al Work­ers' Union Vin­cent Cabr­era says trade unions will con­tin­ue to sup­port the Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion (PSA) in its strug­gle. The PSA is ex­pect­ed to stage a mas­sive protest to­day from 7 am, start­ing at the Fi­nan­cial Com­plex, Port-of-Spain. Cabr­era said: "This group­ing of trade unions has been in sup­port of the PSA strug­gle since be­fore the elec­tion. "You'll re­mem­ber that Com­rade (David) Ab­du­lah was man­han­dled, bru­talised and ar­rest­ed as part of the strug­gle in­volv­ing the PSA's re­sponse to this TTRA is­sue, and what is hap­pen­ing now is that we are see­ing a fur­ther­ance of what we call right-wing eco­nom­ic re­forms by Mr (Win­ston) Dook­er­an."

Cabr­era was speak­ing to the me­dia out­side the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter in St Clair yes­ter­day af­ter rep­re­sen­ta­tives of sev­er­al trade unions de­liv­ered a let­ter to Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar.

Cabr­era said trade unions cam­paigned for the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship and it is un­fair how they were now be­ing treat­ed. Cabr­era said it was un­for­tu­nate there were cer­tain po­lit­i­cal ac­tors who were us­ing po­lit­i­cal sup­port to iso­late the PSA and added the trade unions would not al­low that.

He ac­cused the Fi­nance Min­is­ter of in­tro­duc­ing "a set of right-wing pro­pos­als, a set of right-wing re­forms where he wants to take away from the labour move­ment. "Is we the trade unions cam­paigned for the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship. We did that!" he shout­ed. Cabr­era added: "A stroke against PSA is a stroke against the en­tire trade union move­ment." PSA pres­i­dent Wat­son Duke said the full sup­port of the trade unions would be demon­strat­ed at to­day's protest.

He said: "To­mor­row (to­day) is gonna be re­al bad. They get­ting lash to­mor­row (to­day) and they get­ting lash on Wednes­day." Duke said the PSA was not pre­pared to ac­cept state­ments by Works and Trans­port Min­is­ter Jack Warn­er over the pro­posed strike by maxi taxi op­er­a­tors to­mor­row. He said the PSA was in sup­port of the as­so­ci­a­tion's de­ci­sion to strike. Duke said he was re­serv­ing fur­ther com­ments for to­day.

Trade unions at to­day's protest:

• Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Work­ers' Union;

• Fed­er­a­tion of In­de­pen­dent Trade Unions and NGOs;

• Oil­field Work­ers' Trade Union;

• Na­tion­al Work­ers' Union;

• Fire Ser­vice As­so­ci­a­tion;

• Es­tate Po­lice As­so­ci­a­tion;

• Gov­ern­ment In­dus­tri­al and Gen­er­al Work­ers' Union;

• Med­ical Pro­fes­sion­als' As­so­ci­a­tion of T&T;

• T&T Uni­fied Teach­ers' As­so­ci­a­tion;

• Trans­port and In­dus­tri­al Work­ers' Union;

• Prison Of­fi­cers' As­so­ci­a­tion;

• Postal Work­ers' Union;

• Steel Work­ers' Union;

• All Trinidad Gen­er­al Work­ers' Union;

• Bank­ing, In­sur­ance and Gen­er­al Work­ers' Union;

• Maxi Taxi As­so­ci­a­tions;

• Sea­men and Wa­ter­front Work­ers' Trade Union;

• Na­tion­al Trade Union Cen­tre; and,

• Na­tion­al Union of Gov­ern­ment and Fed­er­at­ed Work­ers.