Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar praised T&T’s work­ing class for their en­dur­ing strength and sig­nif­i­cance in her Labour Day mes­sage yes­ter­day, de­clar­ing them the na­tion’s hope amid on­go­ing so­cial and eco­nom­ic tur­moil.

Re­flect­ing on the piv­otal events of the 1930s, from the hunger march­es to the sug­ar work­ers’ protests which cul­mi­nat­ed in the But­ler Oil­field Ri­ots of June 19, 1937, and es­tab­lished the trade union move­ment as a cor­ner­stone of Trinidad and To­ba­go’s democ­ra­cy, she said: “The labour move­ment has se­cured much of what we of­ten take for grant­ed.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar cit­ed achieve­ments such as the min­i­mum wage, the 40-hour work week and var­i­ous work­er rights and pro­tec­tions but paint­ed a grim pic­ture of the cur­rent state of labour un­der the PNM gov­ern­ment led by Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley.

She ac­cused the gov­ern­ment of be­ing “an­ti-work­er” and “an­ti-trade union,” cit­ing the clo­sure of Petrotrin and oth­er state com­pa­nies, the col­lapse of the free col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing and wide­spread re­trench­ment dis­guised as re­struc­tur­ing.

“Un­der my tenure as prime min­is­ter, we set­tled over 133 col­lec­tive agree­ments val­ued at close to $6 bil­lion. Since then, no ne­go­ti­a­tions have been set­tled, ex­cept for the im­po­si­tion of a mea­gre four per cent,” Per­sad-Bisses­sar said.

She crit­i­cised the pro­lif­er­a­tion of con­tract em­ploy­ment in the pub­lic sec­tor, high­light­ing the 16,000 con­tract work­ers now par­al­lel­ing the per­ma­nent cadre in the civ­il ser­vice and con­demned plans to pri­va­tize and con­tract out ser­vices at the Board of In­land Rev­enue and the Cus­toms and Ex­cise Di­vi­sion.

The Op­po­si­tion Leader promised that the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) would re­verse these mea­sures and re­store an in­de­pen­dent col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing process.

She al­so com­mit­ted to sig­nif­i­cant labour re­forms, in­clud­ing re­vis­ing the In­dus­tri­al Re­la­tions Act, over­haul­ing the Re­trench­ment and Sev­er­ance Ben­e­fits Act and es­tab­lish­ing a Ba­sic Con­di­tions of Work regime in line with In­ter­na­tion­al Labour Or­ga­ni­za­tion (ILO) prin­ci­ples.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar ac­cused the Row­ley regime of in­flict­ing eco­nom­ic and so­cial hard­ships on the pop­u­la­tion, in­clud­ing ris­ing prices, de­te­ri­o­rat­ing liv­ing con­di­tions, in­creased un­em­ploy­ment, wide­spread pover­ty, and op­pres­sive tax­es. She warned that the na­tion is on the brink of so­ci­etal break­down, plagued by un­prece­dent­ed crime and vi­o­lence.

She made a ral­ly­ing call to the work­ing class, stat­ing: “Labour Day re­minds us that the pow­er to up­root a tyran­ni­cal gov­ern­ment lies in the hands of the peo­ple. The or­di­nary work­ing man and woman, through uni­ty and de­ter­mi­na­tion, can change op­pres­sive po­lit­i­cal and eco­nom­ic sys­tems.”

She urged the labour move­ment to unite in de­fence of democ­ra­cy and against the gov­ern­ment’s au­thor­i­tar­i­an­ism.