Ot­to Car­ring­ton

Se­nior Re­porter

ot­to.car­ring­ton@guardian.co.tt

Trinidad and To­ba­go’s trade union move­ment is clos­ing ranks on the Gov­ern­ment’s lat­est de­c­la­ra­tion of a State of Emer­gency (SoE), warn­ing that while crime must be con­front­ed de­ci­sive­ly, emer­gency pow­ers can­not sub­sti­tute for a co­her­ent na­tion­al crime strat­e­gy nor be al­lowed to erode work­ers’ con­sti­tu­tion­al rights.

In sep­a­rate state­ments is­sued yes­ter­day, the Con­trac­tors and Gen­er­al Work­ers Trade Union (CGW­TU) and the Na­tion­al Trade Union Cen­tre of Trinidad and To­ba­go (NATUC) ac­knowl­edged the se­ri­ous­ness of es­ca­lat­ing gang vi­o­lence but urged the gov­ern­ment to move be­yond what they de­scribed as re­cur­ring emer­gency mea­sures.

The SoE was de­clared by Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar in re­sponse to a spike in vi­o­lent crime.

Pres­i­dent Gen­er­al of the CGW­TU Er­mine De Bique Meade ques­tioned whether re­peat­ed states of emer­gency sig­nal deep­er pol­i­cy short­com­ings.

“We do not un­der­es­ti­mate the grav­i­ty of the sit­u­a­tion,” Meade said. “Yet the re­peat­ed re­liance on such mea­sures rais­es a deep­er con­cern – is the SoE tru­ly about gangs, or does it ex­pose the ab­sence of a co­her­ent crime plan?”

The union ar­gued that while cur­fews, de­ten­tion pow­ers and ex­pand­ed po­lice au­thor­i­ty may tem­porar­i­ly sup­press vi­o­lence, they do not dis­man­tle the crim­i­nal net­works sus­tained by il­le­gal firearms, gang re­cruit­ment, ju­di­cial de­lays and so­cio-eco­nom­ic vul­ner­a­bil­i­ties.

“A State of Emer­gency is meant to be ex­tra­or­di­nary, not a re­cur­ring in­stru­ment of gov­er­nance,” the CGW­TU warned, adding that work­ers and com­mu­ni­ties of­ten bear the brunt of move­ment re­stric­tions and eco­nom­ic dis­rup­tion.

Echo­ing those con­cerns, NATUC gen­er­al sec­re­tary Michael An­nisette said the trade union move­ment un­equiv­o­cal­ly con­demns crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty and sup­ports law­ful, con­sti­tu­tion­al mea­sures to safe­guard cit­i­zens—in­clud­ing pro­tec­tive ser­vice per­son­nel.

How­ev­er, he stressed that emer­gency pow­ers must be tem­po­rary, pro­por­tion­ate and sub­ject to strict de­mo­c­ra­t­ic over­sight.

“The con­sti­tu­tion­al, in­dus­tri­al and hu­man rights of work­ers must not be erod­ed un­der any cir­cum­stances,” An­nisette stat­ed.

NATUC in­sist­ed that col­lec­tive agree­ments, griev­ance pro­ce­dures and due process pro­tec­tions must re­main ful­ly in­tact, and warned against ar­bi­trary de­ten­tion, dis­missal or vic­tim­i­sa­tion of work­ers un­der emer­gency reg­u­la­tions.

The fed­er­a­tion al­so called for ad­e­quate re­sources, lo­gis­ti­cal sup­port and fair com­pen­sa­tion for se­cu­ri­ty per­son­nel, es­sen­tial ser­vice work­ers and front­line pub­lic of­fi­cers who will shoul­der in­creased risks dur­ing the emer­gency pe­ri­od.

Both unions em­pha­sised that en­force­ment alone can­not re­solve what they de­scribed as a deeply root­ed so­cial and eco­nom­ic cri­sis.

NATUC point­ed to the need for sus­tained in­vest­ment in youth de­vel­op­ment, job cre­ation, ed­u­ca­tion, com­mu­ni­ty in­ter­ven­tion pro­grammes and so­cial ser­vices.

The CGW­TU sim­i­lar­ly called for a trans­par­ent, long-term crime pre­ven­tion and jus­tice re­form plan.

An­nisette added that the labour move­ment stands ready to en­gage gov­ern­ment, em­ploy­ers and civ­il so­ci­ety in con­struc­tive di­a­logue to en­sure that na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty mea­sures are im­ple­ment­ed re­spon­si­bly.