KEVON FELMINE

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

Hav­ing raised, vot­ed on and passed a Mo­tion of No Con­fi­dence in Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley and his Gov­ern­ment, the Joint Trade Union Move­ment (JTUM) plans to de­liv­er the doc­u­ment to Pres­i­dent Paula-Mae Weeks this Fri­day.

In its first Labour Day ral­ly at the Char­lie King Junc­tion, Fyz­abad, since the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic be­gan, JTUM leader An­cel Ro­get called on trade union­ists, work­ers, com­mu­ni­ty groups, po­lit­i­cal or­gan­i­sa­tions, non-gov­ern­ment or­gan­i­sa­tions, youths, and pa­tri­ot­ic cit­i­zens to join. Ro­get’s call came af­ter a scathing ap­praisal of life un­der the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment ad­min­is­tra­tion.

Af­ter those gath­ered at the ral­ly called for the re­moval of the gov­ern­ment, union lead­ers sym­bol­i­cal­ly re­leased bal­loons with the im­ages of the var­i­ous gov­ern­ment par­lia­men­tar­i­ans in­to the sky.

“Hav­ing passed this mo­tion of no con­fi­dence in the lead­er­ship of Dr Row­ley as Prime Min­is­ter and his ad­min­is­tra­tion, here in the Work­ers’ Par­lia­ment, Char­lie King Junc­tion, Fyz­abad on Labour Day to­day, June 19, in the year of our Lord 2022. This mo­tion just can­not stay here. And, there­fore, on your be­half, we are go­ing to de­liv­er this mo­tion to the fol­low­ing promi­nent and high of­fices,” Ro­get said.

Plan­ning to gath­er at the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah, Port-of-Spain, at 1 pm, the JTUM will de­liv­er the mo­tion to the Of­fice of the Pres­i­dent, Sen­ate Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo, Speak­er of the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Bridgid An­nisette-George and Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar.

Ro­get based the mo­tion on sev­er­al fac­tors, in­clud­ing that the gov­ern­ment dis­re­gards the pain and suf­fer­ing of or­di­nary work­ers. He said it over­saw and con­sent­ed to re­trench thou­sands of work­ers un­der the guise of re­struc­tur­ing while pri­vatis­ing state en­ter­pris­es. He said Petrotrin, the Tourism De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny, Ca­roni Green Ltd, Telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions Ser­vices, the Uni­ver­si­ty of T&T and many oth­ers are ev­i­dence.

Mean­while, the Gov­ern­ment did noth­ing when in­ter­na­tion­al steel gi­ant Arcelor­Mit­tal and oth­er pri­vate com­pa­nies sent home work­ers.

The mo­tion al­so states that the Gov­ern­ment plans to ter­mi­nate work­ers at the Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty, Elec­tric­i­ty Com­mis­sion, Na­tion­al Pe­tro­le­um Mar­ket­ing Com­pa­ny, Board of In­land Rev­enue, Na­tion­al Main­te­nance Train­ing and Se­cu­ri­ty Com­pa­ny, Pub­lic Trans­port Ser­vice Cor­po­ra­tion, the Sol­id Waste Man­age­ment Com­pa­ny Ltd, Lake As­phalt (1978) Ltd, the Port of Port-of-Spain and oth­ers.

“Where­as the Gov­ern­ment con­tin­ues to de­monise and sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly re­move well-pay­ing jobs, to­tal­ly erad­i­cat­ing any hope for our chil­dren to as­pire to a well-pay­ing job now and in the fu­ture. And where­as, the gov­ern­ment in­sist on pur­su­ing a pol­i­cy of eco­nom­ic tyran­ny with no con­sul­ta­tion and ful­ly em­brac­ing the con­tract­ing out of per­ma­nent jobs,” forms part of the mo­tion.

Ro­get ar­gued that the Gov­ern­ment failed to build a na­tion­al con­sen­sus on the eq­ui­table shar­ing of the bur­den of ad­just­ment. He said the gov­ern­ment launched an at­tack on the mid­dle class, with so many work­ers now in con­tract po­si­tions with­out job se­cu­ri­ty. The goal is to make peo­ple work for sub­sis­tence wages with no terms and con­di­tions, pen­sion plan, med­ical plan, paid leave and pro­vi­sions for health and safe­ty.

As he re­flect­ed on the 85th an­niver­sary of Labour Day, Ro­get said the coun­try was in cri­sis, with ram­pant crime and vi­o­lence, health, ed­u­ca­tion and food se­cu­ri­ty in per­il. While the gov­ern­ment blames COVID-19 and the war in Ukraine for the ris­ing cost of liv­ing, Ro­get said the cri­sis be­gan long be­fore.

“They nev­er had a plan, and while they were red, they were nev­er ready. The ob­jec­tive was on­ly to get in­to gov­ern­ment and take con­trol of the State. Take con­trol of the State, not in your in­ter­est, but the in­ter­est of the 1% and their fi­nanciers. That is why we are now ex­pe­ri­enc­ing the most un­car­ing, in­com­pe­tent, and ar­ro­gant gov­ern­ment this coun­try has ever seen.”

He said while the gov­ern­ment takes away jobs and im­pos­es prop­er­ty tax, the price of food, goods and ser­vices goes up dai­ly. There­fore, union­ists agreed that noth­ing less than a 24 per cent wage in­crease would be suf­fi­cient to im­prove their stan­dard of liv­ing.

Ro­get said the Gov­ern­ment has a wind­fall when pay­ing con­trac­tor friends and bills for cer­tain peo­ple. But when it comes to pay­ing work­ers and set­tling out­stand­ing ne­go­ti­a­tions, they cry doom and gloom and want work­ers to feel guilty for right­ful­ly de­mand­ing a prop­er wage in­crease.

“They just want you to say noth­ing, do noth­ing and suf­fer in si­lence. Meek­ly wait and mur­mur not. This is what their syco­phants and the PNM apol­o­gists sup­port.”

While the Gov­ern­ment blames COVID-19 for the state of the econ­o­my, Ro­get said Guardian Hold­ings Lim­it­ed de­clared $179 mil­lion in prof­its in the first quar­ter of 2022. Massy Hold­ings made $326.8 mil­lion for the first half of 2022.

First Cit­i­zen made a $355 mil­lion af­ter-tax prof­it in the first half of 2022. Re­pub­lic Bank made $1.37 bil­lion in prof­it in 2021 and a whop­ping $728.7 mil­lion in just half of 2022. ANSA Mer­chant Bank boasts a $360 mil­lion prof­it in 2021, and An­gos­tu­ra has a $158 mil­lion prof­it.

De­spite these prof­its in the same econ­o­my the gov­ern­ment cries over, Ro­get said some com­pa­nies still de­ny work­ers a fair salary ad­just­ment.