Clevon Raphael

James Lam­bert, pres­i­dent gen­er­al of the 25,000-strong Na­tion­al Union of Gov­ern­ment and Fed­er­at­ed Work­ers (NUGFW) wants no part of the Move­ment for So­cial Jus­tice (MSJ). His union will be at­tend­ing the an­nu­al Labour Day cel­e­bra­tions in Fyz­abad on June 19, but he will not be speak­ing on that plat­form. While he is a sup­port­er of the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship's (PP) ad­min­is­tra­tion, Lam­bert ar­gues that the gov­ern­ment is not do­ing enough for his union's mem­ber­ship.

Q: Com­rade Lam­bert, I see you trade union­ists are up to your same old tac­tics?

A: (At his Up­per Hen­ry Street, Port-of-Spain, of­fice of the Na­tion­al Union of Gov­ern­ment and Fed­er­at­ed Work­ers, ear­ly Thurs­day morn­ing) What is meant by the same old tac­tics?

Scare­mon­ger­ing for one?

Well, I am not aware of what you are say­ing. (Both hands rest­ing on the edge of his desk, pi­ano-style.) What I know is that the trade-union move­ment is prepar­ing for the usu­al cel­e­bra­tion nor­mal­ly held in Fyz­abad.

That is cor­rect but aren't you all threat­en­ing some ma­jor an­nounce­ments on Tues­day, which some could prop­er­ly view as detri­men­tal to the coun­try?

Well, you ought to be aware that each leader is re­spon­si­ble for their own union. There­fore, I would not like what is said by oth­er lead­ers to be at­trib­uted to­tal­ly to the NUGFW. There are state­ments made at times...

That you may not agree with?

Yes. So it would not be right to say the trade-union move­ment has been threat­en­ing so-and-so. I don't agree with all the state­ments that are be­ing made by some trade union­ists.

What state­ments you do not agree with?

No. You are the one who said that trade unions are go­ing to make ma­jor state­ments on Tues­day...

To shut down the coun­try...are you in favour of that?

No. Not at this time. Not at this time.

When do you think it would be ap­pro­pri­ate to do so? Shut­ting down the coun­try?

I want to back-track a lit­tle. When the trade unions met and we were dis­cussing the five per cent that was be­ing of­fered by the gov­ern­ment, all of us were on board with a se­ries of meet­ings, which al­so spoke about shut­ting down the coun­try, right? Since that hap­pened, I have not been in­volved in some of these meet­ings be­cause the vol­ume of work that I have with re­spect to my union's ne­go­ti­a­tions for new in­dus­tri­al con­tracts and so on.

Be­fore go­ing fur­ther, Mr Lam­bert, you are still a mem­ber...?

(Sur­pris­ing­ly an­tic­i­pat­ing the ques­tion) Yes. I am a mem­ber of the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress.

So do you as­so­ciate your­self with the an­ti-PP com­ments made by MSJ leader and gov­ern­ment sen­a­tor David Ab­du­lah?

I want to say cat­e­gor­i­cal­ly: I am not a mem­ber of the MSJ. When that par­ty was be­ing formed, NUGFW was not in­vit­ed, so I know noth­ing about its for­ma­tion. I think that po­si­tion was tak­en be­cause NUGFW, per­haps, was seen to be in some way as­so­ci­at­ed with the PNM, which is not true. We have mem­bers who sup­port var­i­ous po­lit­i­cal par­ties.

But do you agree with his stand that the PP is not pro­vid­ing good gov­er­nance?

Ab­du­lah has his own way of speak­ing. I don't agree with some of the things he is say­ing and I would not be in­volved in what­ev­er po­lit­i­cal quar­rel the MSJ may have with the PP regime.

Com­rade Lam­bert, when do you think would be the ap­pro­pri­ate time to shut­down the coun­try?

(Fur­rowed brow) My po­si­tion as it re­lates to be­ing pres­i­dent gen­er­al of NUGFW is to deal whol­ly and sole­ly with the in­dus­tri­al as­pect, as it af­fects my mem­ber­ship in the pub­lic ser­vice...dai­ly-paid work­ers to be ex­act and in this re­gard, I do not think the gov­ern­ment is do­ing suf­fi­cient, rel­a­tive to my mem­bers.

You have not an­swered the ques­tion. When do you think it would be ap­pro­pri­ate to sup­port the shut­ting down of the coun­try?

I am say­ing the time is not ripe.

Can't you give some sort of in­di­ca­tion? When would that time be ap­pro­pri­ate?

I do not want to com­mit my­self to say it would be to­mor­row, next week, next month or next year...when­ev­er. The rea­son for this is when we were all hav­ing meet­ings to­geth­er at that time, none of the unions would have had their ne­go­ti­a­tions con­clud­ed, but since some of them have had their ne­go­ti­a­tions set­tled, I have not heard any­thing again per­tain­ing to shut­ting down Trinidad and To­ba­go.

Mr Lam­bert, do you con­cur with the stance of the MSJ that the gov­ern­ment is not work­ing in the best in­ter­est of the work­ing class?

I do not want to put it as broad as you would want to and what I would say is that the gov­ern­ment is not work­ing in the best in­ter­est of its dai­ly-paid work­ers.

Why do you say that?

Be­cause of the amount of out­stand­ing ne­go­ti­a­tions for these em­ploy­ees. Our last agree­ment was for the pe­ri­od 2005 to 2007. We now have two ne­go­ti­a­tions, which so far can­not be re­solved. There­fore, it is his­toric to me that a gov­ern­ment will come out and say take five per cent...across the board.

In spite of the gov­ern­ment say­ing they did not put any cap on wages for pub­lic ser­vants, month­ly, dai­ly or oth­er­wise?

Yes. We have heard that but when you look at the cir­cum­stances sur­round­ing these ne­go­ti­a­tions, there is no doubt that there is or was a cap. Raphael, lis­ten to me, with all the eco­nom­ic prob­lems the Ja­maican gov­ern­ment has, like most oth­er coun­tries in the world, they of­fered their pub­lic ser­vants more...

Yes, but...?

(Vig­or­ous­ly ob­ject­ing) Hold on, Raphael! Hold on! (Raised voice) Hold on...

I don't want to think you are try­ing to com­pare two dif­fer­ent cas­es of eco­nom­ic...

I said hold on, Raphael! Hold on! I am say­ing that all the oth­er Caribbean na­tions de­pend on Trinidad and To­ba­go for as­sis­tance in one form or the oth­er. Guyana, which is the worst of all, was the on­ly one to of­fer five per cent for ONE year...

Com­rade Lam­bert...

(Hands out­stretched, protest­ing vig­or­ous­ly) Wait. I am say­ing wait! Trinidad and To­ba­go's gov­ern­ment of­fered five per cent over THREE years! Three!

Com­rade Lam­bert, isn't it iron­ic that our trade unions can march on­ly for bet­ter work­ing con­di­tions for mem­bers, in­clud­ing salaries, and not for their mem­bers to im­prove their pro­duc­tiv­i­ty lev­el?

Mr Raphael, pro­duc­tiv­i­ty is part of the col­lec­tive arrange­ments. When­ev­er we en­ter in­to ne­go­ti­a­tions, part of...

I can­not be­lieve that you...?

(An­oth­er sharp in­ter­rup­tion) Hold on. You are bad­ger­ing me! Let me fin­ish what I have to say...lis­ten to what I have to say. I know you ex­pect cer­tain an­swers while you are here, but let me put for­ward my case in a tru­ly de­mo­c­ra­t­ic form. You can­not keep in­ter­rupt­ing me all the time, okay?

Very well, sir.

Mr Raphael, one of the prob­lems I have, par­tic­u­lar­ly with you jour­nal­ists, is that it is okay to blame trade union lead­ers for low pro­duc­tiv­i­ty at the work­place.

Mr Lam­bert, the fact is I can­not re­call hear­ing you im­plor­ing your mem­ber­ship to in­crease their lev­el of pro­duc­tiv­i­ty...?

Be­cause you are not aware when we are hav­ing meet­ings and as leader of the NUGFW...and if you are say­ing you don't hear me, it is be­cause you are ei­ther not read­ing or maybe you are not fol­low­ing cer­tain state­ments that I have been mak­ing over the years...even be­fore I be­came pres­i­dent gen­er­al of this union. I have re­peat­ed­ly been say­ing that you can­not work one hour for eight hours' pay. We are killing the econ­o­my if we con­tin­ue that way.

But even so, what has been the re­sult of...?

Again you gone in­ter­rupt­ing me...you want to con­tin­ue this in­ter­view or not?

Sor­ry sir, con­tin­ue.

Very well. (Laughs) I agree that the pro­duc­tiv­i­ty lev­el is very low but that is not so be­cause of the work­ers, Mr Raphael, or the trade union move­ment. It is the sys­tem. (Pound­ing his desk with one fist) It is the en­tire sys­tem, which has to be changed from top to bot­tom. To deal with the lack of ac­count­abil­i­ty from the lev­el of man­age­ment and I am re­fer­ring pri­mar­i­ly here to the pub­lic ser­vice. Not the pri­vate sec­tor. Man­age­ment through­out the sys­tem en­cour­ages low pro­duc­tiv­i­ty.

I don't have many prob­lems with the pri­vate sec­tor. All our ne­go­ti­a­tions with com­pa­nies such as Carib Brew­ery, Lever Broth­ers, Best­crete, IGL, those have been set­tled favourably for the re­spec­tive em­ploy­ees who re­ceived dou­ble-dig­it in­creas­es. If the econ­o­my is that bad, as is be­ing pur­port­ed by the Min­is­ter of Fi­nance, do you think the pri­vate sec­tor would be able to of­fer a bet­ter pack­age than the gov­ern­ment? We do not have a prob­lem there. It is in the pub­lic sec­tor.

Can you elab­o­rate on this pro­duc­tiv­i­ty prob­lem?

Of course. You have month­ly-paid of­fi­cers who are sup­posed to be su­per­vis­ing the dai­ly-paid work­ers and who would have to sign doc­u­ments to pur­chase ma­te­ri­als but you can hard­ly find them when you want...they are all over the place, do­ing what we don't know. But at the end of the day, it is the dai­ly-paid work­ers who are be­ing blamed, when that is not ab­solute­ly cor­rect. As long as there is a lack of ac­count­abil­i­ty in the pub­lic sec­tor, es­pe­cial­ly at the man­age­ment lev­el, pro­duc­tiv­i­ty would nev­er in­crease. End of sto­ry.

The MSJ has ac­cused the PP ad­min­is­tra­tion of be­tray­ing the labour move­ment...?

I wouldn't use the word 'be­trayed' be­cause I was not there when they signed the Fyz­abad Ac­cord.

Com­rade, one of the on­go­ing is­sues with the gov­ern­ment and your union is this ques­tion of a pen­sion plan for your mem­ber­ship. How far has that got­ten?

(A heavy sigh) That is one of the prob­lems that we are still en­coun­ter­ing and it goes back to the ear­ly days when Mr Nathaniel Crichlow, God bless his soul, was pres­i­dent gen­er­al of this union. The lat­est step we took was in sign­ing the prin­ci­ples of a pen­sion plan way back in 2000, but we could not agree on some of the mea­sures in that doc­u­ment.

Are you privy to what bomb­shells your com­rades would be ex­plod­ing in Fyz­abad?

I have not been at­tend­ing their meet­ings be­cause of my com­mit­ment to my mem­ber­ship and I am not aware of any bomb­shell. What I do know is that I will not be speak­ing on that plat­form.

Why?

I'm ful­ly in sup­port of the trade union move­ment in the con­text of in­dus­tri­al re­la­tions, get­ting bet­ter ben­e­fits for our re­spec­tive mem­bers but I'm not in­volved in the MSJ, PYJ, KIT, the this or that. (Laughs) This move­ment is about seek­ing the work­ers' rights, which I am pre­pared to fight for any­day, any­time, but not the pol­i­tics. I leave that to each in­di­vid­ual work­er to choose who they want to vote for when the time comes.