by Lee An­na Ma­haraj

The Joint Trade Union As­so­ci­a­tion has dared the gov­ern­ment to take le­gal ac­tion against them dur­ing a demon­stra­tion march at the Chief Per­son­nel Of­fi­cers’ (CPO) of­fice in St Clair, Port-of-Spain.

The Prison Of­fi­cers' As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go, Fire Of­fi­cers' As­so­ci­a­tion, as well as the Po­lice So­cial and Wel­fare As­so­ci­a­tion, were present at the march on Fri­day.

Speak­ing at the demon­stra­tion, Pres­i­dent of the Prison Of­fi­cers' As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go, Ceron Richards said they are not afraid to go to court.

“We are not to be bul­lied and fright­ened in­to a court in a process that is young that we still have dis­cus­sions en­su­ing and the CPO is bul­ly­ing his way, telling us he is go­ing to car­ry us to court. We are not im­pressed about that at all, as a mat­ter of fact, we are telling the CPO, Bring it on! I dare you, bring it on!” Richards said.

He added:

“Take the whole coun­try to court, all the work­ers of Trinidad and To­ba­go, take them to court! Be­cause if that is the Gov­ern­ment’s ren­di­tion of man­ag­ing an econ­o­my, well heav­en help them. If the gov­ern­ment wants to take T&T to court, if Dr Kei­th Row­ley, Mr Im­bert, the CPO, ren­di­tion of man­ag­ing a good econ­o­my is by tak­ing all of its cit­i­zens, all of the work­ing class to court, well then let them bring it on!”

Richards, along with Leo Ramkissoon, pres­i­dent of Fire Of­fi­cers' As­so­ci­a­tion, hand­ed over let­ters to the CPO’s of­fice, of­fi­cial­ly stat­ing their re­jec­tion of the 4 per cent of­fi­cer, cit­ing their rea­sons for do­ing so.

"The Prison Of­fi­cers As­so­ci­a­tion has al­ways com­mu­ni­cat­ed to the CPO that what we want first and fore­most is a ne­go­ti­a­tion that is not robbed of its in­tegri­ty. Ne­go­ti­a­tion is an on­ward dis­cus­sion be­tween both par­ties and we will reach a point at some time where we agree and go for­ward. The CPO and by ex­ten­sion the gov­ern­ment is rob­bing us of that sa­cred process,” Richards added.

JTUM pres­i­dent An­cel Ro­get, who was al­so present, added that the CPO and Gov­ern­ment are bul­ly­ing pub­lic ser­vants and that they would not cave in to the bul­ly­ing. He warned lead­ers of the pro­tec­tive ser­vices not to give in to the 4 per cent of­fer.

“It is not just that the of­fer is un­fair, it is al­so dis­re­spect­ful and the method by which they are ap­proach­ing, is high­ly con­temp­tu­ous and bul­ly­ing. To ac­cept 4 per cent will be a be­tray­al of the mem­bers. If any­one of these com­rades of the lead­er­ships of any­one of the pro­tec­tive ser­vices ac­cepts 4 per cent it will be a be­tray­al of the trust and the con­fi­dence that the mem­bers re­posed on them,” Ro­get said.

Richards in­formed that fur­ther ac­tion from the union mem­bers may come and they will make an­nounce­ments ac­cord­ing­ly.

“Our mem­ber­ship is get­ting an­gri­er and an­gri­er and they’re go­ing to be­come less and less pre­dictable and they’re go­ing to take it in­to their own hands,” he said.