Resh­ma Ra­goonath

Pres­i­dent of the Bank­ing In­sur­ance and Gen­er­al Work­ers' Union (BIG­WU), Vin­cent Cabr­era is ex­pect­ing a mas­sive turnout at to­day's an­nu­al Labour Day cel­e­bra­tions in Fyz­abad. To­day the labour move­ment marks its 75th an­niver­sary and he said it was a "very ex­cit­ing time." Cabr­era, speak­ing with the T&T Guardian yes­ter­day, said there had been a "re­newed in­ter­est" in labour and with that he ex­pect­ed more peo­ple to at­tend to­day's match to Fyz­abad. The ex­cite­ment ahead of to­day's cel­e­bra­tion is al­so fu­elled by the Move­ment for So­cial Jus­tice's with­draw­al on Sun­day from the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship Gov­ern­ment. MSJ leader David Ab­du­lah al­so sig­nalled his in­ten­tion to re­sign from the Sen­ate. Yes­ter­day Ab­du­lah said he e-mailed a for­mal res­ig­na­tion let­ter to Per­sad-Bisses­sar on Sun­day af­ter­noon. How­ev­er, he said, he did not re­ceive an ac­knowl­edge­ment from the PM, ex­cept for her me­dia re­lease, which was is­sued Sun­day evening.

To­day's cel­e­bra­tions will be set against the back­drop of the MSJ's de­ci­sion which was not to­tal­ly un­ex­pect­ed. Cabr­era, who is al­so chair­man of the MSJ, de­clined to com­ment on Ab­du­lah's res­ig­na­tion since, he said, he want­ed to keep labour sep­a­rate from the MSJ is­sue. "The res­ig­na­tion would have caused more in­ter­est so there will be a greater turnout (to­day). We can see both with­in the union and out­side the union a re­newed in­ter­est in what is tak­ing place with­in the labour move­ment," he said.

The BIG­WU leader said the union in­tend­ed to make its voice heard at the cel­e­bra­tions. Cabr­era is sched­uled to speak on to­day's plat­form to­geth­er with Wayne Kublals­ingh, of the High­way Re-Route Move­ment, Shi­raz Khan, of the Trinidad Uni­fied Farm­ers' As­so­ci­a­tion, as well as fea­ture speak­er Oil­fields' Work­ers' Trade Union (OW­TU)p res­i­dent gen­er­al An­cel Ro­get. He said BIG­WU would bring to the pub­lic's at­ten­tion a num­ber of de­vel­op­ments with­in the fi­nance sec­tor which was ad­verse­ly af­fect­ing the sec­tor and work­ers. "We will al­so show the pub­lic that the Gov­ern­ment, in­stead of pro­tect­ing the rights of the peo­ple, are tak­ing away the rights of the peo­ple," he added.

To­day's cel­e­bra­tion will be­gin at 5 am with the But­ler Clas­sic 5K Road Race, 20K Run and 20K Walk which starts at OW­TU Para­mount Build­ing, Cir­cu­lar Road, San Fer­nan­do, and ends at Char­lie King Junc­tion, Fyz­abad. A new bust of Uri­ah "Buzz" But­ler will be un­veiled as the trade union mem­bers pay homage to the OW­TU founder at the Fyz­abad Pub­lic Ceme­tery. The march, which leaves Av­o­cat Junc­tion for Char­lie King Junc­tion, is ex­pect­ed to be­gin be­tween 9:30 am and 10 am. This year's cel­e­bra­tions will al­so fea­ture a re-en­act­ment of the events of June 19, 1937, in­clud­ing But­ler's speech, singing and burn­ing of ef­fi­gy of Char­lie King. The re-en­act­ment was pro­duced by Arts-in-Ac­tion in col­lab­o­ra­tion with Tony Hall. The day will end on a cul­tur­al note with per­for­mances from 3 Canal, Broth­er Re­sis­tance, Broth­er Valenti­no, Singing San­dra and Black Stal­in.