Raphael John-Lall

T&T's May 24 gen­er­al elec­tion has seen a re-en­try of trade union­ists in­to elec­toral pol­i­tics. Labour ac­tivists trad­ing plac­ards for the po­lit­i­cal plat­form is noth­ing new. Tubal Uri­ah "Buzz" But­ler, Bas­deo Pan­day, Raf­fique Shah and a host of oth­er trade union­ists pre­ced­ed David Ab­du­lah and Er­rol McLeod's for­ay in­to mod­ern day pol­i­tics. But­ler formed the But­ler Par­ty and fought the gen­er­al elec­tions of 1950. He fought in the oil belt and won the seat to rep­re­sent St Patrick West in the Leg­isla­tive Coun­cil. His par­ty won six seats, against two each by the oth­er three par­ties, and there were six in­de­pen­dents.

But­ler re­tained his seat at the fol­low­ing gen­er­al elec­tion in 1956, but suf­fered an­oth­er crush­ing elec­toral de­feat in the gen­er­al elec­tion of 1961, fight­ing for the seat of La Brea. By that time, the au­ra he had gained by ag­i­tat­ing for work­ers in 1937 had worn off. In 1976, the Unit­ed Labour Front (ULF) con­test­ed the gen­er­al elec­tion, win­ning ten seats in Par­lia­ment. In 1981 the ULF com­bined with two oth­er po­lit­i­cal par­ties, the De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Ac­tion Con­gress (DAC), led by Arthur NR Robin­son and the Tapia House Move­ment, led by Lloyd Best, to con­test the 1981 gen­er­al elec­tions as the Na­tion­al Al­liance. The ULF won eight seats, the DAC, two. In 1986, these par­ties merged with the Or­gan­i­sa­tion for Na­tion­al Re­con­struc­tion (ONR) to form the Na­tion­al Al­liance for Re­con­struc­tion (NAR), which won the 1986 gen­er­al elec­tion, de­feat­ing the PNM for the first time since 1956.

In 2010, the labour-based Move­ment for So­cial Jus­tice (MSJ), com­pris­ing Ab­du­lah and McLeod, is one of the fac­tions in the Op­po­si­tion coali­tion. Two can­di­dates will be rep­re­sent­ing the MSJ, Er­rol McLeod for the Pointe-a-Pierre seat, and Ernesto Kesra for La Brea. Rudy In­dars­ingh, pres­i­dent of the All Trinidad Work­ers Trade Union, will be con­test­ing the seat for Cou­va South un­der the UNC ban­ner. McLeod, a for­mer pres­i­dent-gen­er­al of the OW­TU, was one of the found­ing mem­bers of the ULF. He ran as a can­di­date for the ULF in the 1976 elec­tion, win­ning the Oropouche seat and served as an Op­po­si­tion Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment un­til 1981.

Dif­fer­ent era, same is­sues

Lennox Lon­don, re­tired pres­i­dent, Fire Ser­vice Sec­ond Di­vi­sion, com­ment­ing on labour's his­to­ry in pol­i­tics, be­lieves labour will this time make a mean­ing­ful im­pact on pol­i­tics. He be­lieves that when McLeod ran on a ULF tick­et in 1976, that par­ty was not "ful­ly labour." "The ULF had labour el­e­ments, but it was not a true labour par­ty. The MSJ is much more labour-ori­ent­ed," he said. He said the is­sues dur­ing the 1970s are sim­i­lar to those in 2010. "Dur­ing the 1970s, there were is­sues like job se­cu­ri­ty that ex­ist now, but these days there are is­sues like con­tract labour, which did not ex­ist back then," he said.

Lon­don said is­sues like glob­al­i­sa­tion that af­fect work­ers and their job se­cur­tiy were not as promi­nent in the 1970s. "Both gov­ern­ment and the pri­vate sec­tor these days at­tack work­ers' job se­cu­ri­ty. Both of them are con­tract­ing out work­ers' em­ploy­ment," he said. Lon­don said the UNC ad­min­is­tra­tion gave sen­a­tor­ships to labour lead­ers, like James Lam­bert, pres­i­dent, Na­tion­al Union of Gov­ern­ment and Fed­er­at­ed, but the cit­i­zen­ry did not view this labour par­tic­i­pa­tion as be­ing gen­uine. "Lam­bert was a UNC sen­a­tor, so was Vin­cent Cabr­era, but al­though they tried, they could not make a mean­ing­ful con­tri­bu­tion be­cause of the par­ty struc­ture. Peo­ple viewed it as a win­dow dress­ing."

Lon­don said the dif­fer­ence now is that the MSJ is an in­de­pen­dent labour par­ty with its own phi­los­o­phy. De­spite this, he said it will be a "chal­lenge" for the MSJ to sell its ide­ol­o­gy with­in the coali­tion pow­er struc­ture. "Now once the coali­tion is elect­ed, labour will have a chance through the MSJ to in­flu­ence pol­i­cy de­ci­sions. It will not be easy, though. Labour will have to win over the dif­fer­ent groups in the coali­tion to its be­liefs."

Part of na­tion's de­vel­op­ment

McLeod told the Guardian on Mon­day that it is on­ly nat­ur­al for labour want­i­ng to re-en­ter elec­toral pol­i­tics in 2010. "Labour is one of the most im­por­tant pil­lars in T&T. The in­cum­bent ad­min­is­tra­tion is an­ti-labour, an­ti-union and an­ti-peo­ple. Labour has de­ter­mined that it will re-as­sert it self in the pol­i­tics of this coun­try to en­gen­der change." He said there has been groundswell of sup­port from work­ers and or­di­nary peo­ple about their ac­tive role in this elec­tion. "I've had on­ly a pos­i­tive re­sponse from work­ers who have wit­nessed an ero­sion of the se­cu­ri­ty of their jobs by the pro­pa­gan­da of this ad­min­is­tra­tion. This ad­min­is­tra­tion has on­ly served to show its ig­no­rance of the role labour must play in any peo­ple's de­vel­op­ment." McLeod dimissed claims by crit­ics and the cur­rent ad­min­is­tra­tion that once elect­ed, they would rad­i­calise the gov­ern­ment or scare away for­eign in­vestors. "We will play the role we have al­ways played and that is ef­fec­tive rep­re­sen­ta­tion of the peo­ple in the coun­try."