Labour lead­ers say they have no in­ten­tions of help­ing the UNC to win the 2020 gen­er­al elec­tions de­spite a call for uni­ty from its po­lit­i­cal leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar.

In an in­ter­view, the po­lit­i­cal leader of the MSJ David Ab­du­lah likened Per­sad-Bisses­sar to “a wolf in sheep cloth­ing.”

Say­ing the MSJ was en­ter­ing elec­tions alone, Ab­du­lah added, “She had a chance and she blew it. She failed in spite of all the sug­ges­tions I made. All of this now is a ploy to get in­to the gov­ern­ment and this is not some­thing we will con­sid­er.”

Asked whether he was sur­prised by Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s call for help, Ab­du­lah said, “I am not sur­prised be­cause re­al­ly she is a wolf in sheep cloth­ing. She failed to live up to the com­mit­ments made in the Fyz­abad De­c­la­ra­tion. She failed to have the Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship func­tion like a coali­tion of par­ties. She ig­nored our sug­ges­tions and treat­ed oth­ers with dis­re­spect.”

Ab­du­lah had been one of the sig­na­to­ries of the De­c­la­ra­tion which was signed at the But­ler Hall of Rev­o­lu­tion, on April 21, 2010, by the Con­gress of the Peo­ple (COP), To­ba­go Or­gan­i­sa­tion of the Peo­ple (TOP), MSJ and the Na­tion­al Joint Ac­tion Con­gress (NJAC).

The de­c­la­ra­tion was a promise for an end to cor­rup­tion, trans­paren­cy in the award of con­tracts, cam­paign fi­nance re­form and the re­form the In­dus­tri­al Re­la­tions Act, in­clud­ing the Work­men Com­pen­sa­tion pro­vi­sion to in­clude all work­ers, in­clud­ing do­mes­tic and store work­ers. How­ev­er, even though sev­er­al pieces of leg­is­la­tion per­tain­ing to labour re­form was passed, the In­dus­tri­al Re­la­tions re­form nev­er ma­te­ri­alised.

Dur­ing her speech on Tues­day night in Gas­par­il­lo, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said she was will­ing to work with labour lead­ers.

“We will work with the labour move­ment. We will walk with NGOs and CBOs. I want to come and meet you. We have ideas and plans. We will come to your com­mu­ni­ties and draft a pol­i­cy to res­cue T&T.”

She added, “The labour move­ment will no longer see it­self as an out­sider to lead­er­ship in how our na­tion grows and evolves. We will learn from the past and we will do bet­ter.

She al­so said stake­hold­ers and ad­vo­ca­cy groups will find a friend again in the Gov­ern­ment.”