Geisha Kow­lessar

The Joint Ac­tion Trade Move­ment is ex­pect­ed to mark the one-year an­niver­sary of the de­c­la­ra­tion of the state of emer­gency by gath­er­ing on the steps of the Hall of Jus­tice, Port-of-Spain, on Au­gust 21. Union lead­ers al­so are ex­pect­ed to "bring" Labour Day is­sues to the city on Sep­tem­ber 7, via a ral­ly.

Mak­ing the an­nounce­ment yes­ter­day was Oil­fields Work­ers' Trade Union leader An­cel Ro­get at a press brief­ing at the Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Work­ers' Union Hall, Port-of-Spain. He said the rea­son why the emer­gency was ini­tial­ly de­clared was to pre­vent union lead­ers from stag­ing a mass protest through the streets of the cap­i­tal.

He added: "Au­gust 21, 2011 was the be­gin­ning of one of the dark­est pe­ri­od in the his­to­ry of the coun­try where the con­sti­tu­tion­al rights of the cit­i­zens were de­nied, were tak­en away where we could not have free­dom of ex­pres­sion, we could not have free­dom of move­ment. "The trade union move­ment could not keep meet­ings with their mem­ber­ship, where cit­i­zens were ar­rest­ed with­out cause and with­out ev­i­dence."

Say­ing the price of free­dom was eter­nal vig­i­lance, the trade union leader said he in­tend­ed to nev­er let the coun­try for­get about the events of Au­gust 21, last year. He said: "The state of emer­gency failed ter­ri­bly sim­ply be­cause it was nev­er to deal with crime. We be­lieve the state of emer­gency was called to deal with our cam­paign for jus­tice for work­ers... we were cam­paign­ing to shut the coun­try down."

He said to date there had not been giv­en any def­i­nite eco­nom­ic cost which re­sult­ed from the emer­gency. "We asked the hyp­o­crit­i­cal busi­ness­men in Port-of-Spain, the var­i­ous cham­bers... the coun­try was shut down for three months and they said noth­ing, work­ers lost their jobs," Ro­get added. Bank­ing In­sur­ance and Gen­er­al Work­ers' Union (BIG­WU) pres­i­dent Vin­cent Cabr­era, who al­so spoke, said now more than ever was the trade union move­ment unit­ed.

On Sep­tem­ber 7, Ro­get said, is­sues which were dis­cussed at this year's Labour Day cel­e­bra­tions in Fyz­abad would be ad­dressed in Port-of-Spain. He added: "The is­sues of out­stand­ing ne­go­ti­a­tions, in­equity, pri­vati­sa­tion... all of those is­sues are deemed en­e­mies to the trade union move­ment."