The count­down to Labour Day on Wednes­day has been over­shad­owed by threats of in­dus­tri­al un­rest at two com­pa­nies where the work­ers are rep­re­sent­ed by the coun­try’s old­est trade union, the Oil­field Work­ers’ Trade Union (OW­TU).

It is sig­nif­i­cant that this union, found­ed dur­ing the strug­gles for im­proved work­ing con­di­tions, wages and rights that gave rise to the But­ler Oil­field Ri­ots on June 19, 1937, is re­spond­ing to 21st-cen­tu­ry chal­lenges with strate­gies iden­ti­cal to the ones used by the found­ing fa­thers of the labour move­ment all those decades ago.

Cur­rent OW­TU pres­i­dent gen­er­al An­cel Ro­get has been warn­ing about pos­si­ble un­rest at Yara Trinidad Lim­it­ed’s am­mo­nia plants in Point Lisas and the T&T Elec­tric­i­ty Com­mis­sion (T&TEC). Nev­er mind that the con­tentious is­sues at these work­places are rad­i­cal­ly dif­fer­ent from the ones that led to the 1937 ri­ots.

Mr Ro­get is warn­ing of im­pend­ing “cat­a­stroph­ic fail­ure” and pos­si­ble fa­tal­i­ties at Yara be­cause he claims the per­ma­nent work­force is be­ing re­placed with con­tract em­ploy­ees.

In the case of T&TEC, he says there could be dark days ahead — a ref­er­ence to pos­si­ble is­sues with the coun­try’s elec­tric­i­ty sup­ply — be­cause of work­place health and safe­ty con­cerns, specif­i­cal­ly a lack of per­son­al pro­tec­tive equip­ment (PPE).

At the sur­face, this seems like Mr Ro­get, one of the coun­try’s most promi­nent and out­spo­ken labour lead­ers, car­ry­ing out his union’s man­date of pro­mot­ing bet­ter work­ing con­di­tions for their mem­bers.

How­ev­er, as he fol­lows in the foot­steps of trade union gi­ants such as Tubal Uri­ah “Buzz” But­ler, Cap­tain An­drew Arthur Cipri­ani, George Weekes, Al­bert Maria Gomes, Adri­an Co­la Rien­zi, El­ma Fran­cois and CLR James, Mr Ro­get must be cog­nizant of how much things have changed since the ear­ly days of the labour move­ment.

He should not be in­flex­i­ble in the face of the chang­ing na­ture, forms and reg­u­la­tions of em­ploy­ment and ought not to ig­nore the new re­al­i­ties brought about by glob­al­i­sa­tion, which has rad­i­cal­ly changed work­places and in­dus­tri­al re­la­tions.

In the 21st-cen­tu­ry work­place, in­ter­ac­tions be­tween em­ploy­ers, em­ploy­ees and oth­er stake­hold­ers are fo­cused on achiev­ing ef­fi­cien­cy, morale and job sat­is­fac­tion in a high­ly com­pet­i­tive en­vi­ron­ment.

Many tra­di­tion­al jobs have be­come re­dun­dant and new ti­tles and func­tions are con­tin­u­al­ly emerg­ing. With state-of-the-art tech­nol­o­gy be­com­ing more wide­spread, there is greater de­mand for skilled and ed­u­cat­ed per­son­nel and in­creas­ing num­bers of ad hoc, ca­su­al, part-time, tem­po­rary and con­tract work­ers.

Flex­itime and tele­work­ing are al­so more com­mon­place.

In ad­di­tion, the green and dig­i­tal rev­o­lu­tions are putting more pres­sure on gov­ern­ments and busi­ness­es to re­main com­pet­i­tive by em­brac­ing new tech­nolo­gies and cul­ti­vat­ing a fu­ture-ready work­force.

This con­stant­ly evolv­ing en­vi­ron­ment is an op­por­tu­ni­ty for Mr Ro­get and oth­er labour lead­ers to move past out­dat­ed in­dus­tri­al re­la­tions con­cepts and adapt to new and en­light­ened meth­ods of work­er rep­re­sen­ta­tion. It is time they re­de­fine their struc­tures and roles.

As the 87th an­niver­sary of T&T’s labour move­ment ap­proach­es, trade unions must make more of an ef­fort to un­der­stand the changed re­al­i­ties fac­ing them and the em­ploy­ers with whom they in­ter­act on be­half of work­ers.

The quest for fair labour stan­dards and de­cent work must con­tin­ue but in a way that em­braces mod­ern-day re­al­i­ties.

Labour Day 2024 is a fit­ting oc­ca­sion to ap­ply the lessons learnt on June 19, 1937, with an aware­ness of cur­rent re­al­i­ties and fu­ture chal­lenges, con­tin­u­ing the lega­cy of But­ler and the oth­er labour pi­o­neers.