There was chaos and confrontation at the Seamen and Waterfront Workers Trade Union Hall on Wrightson Road, Port-of-Spain, yesterday, when secretary general Peter Morris was challenged by members over the status of the union and its account.
Several members had to be restrained by their colleagues and some angry members almost came to blows.
Following the incident, several members now plan to move a motion a vote of no confidence against Morris, after he failed to answer their questions.
Members said they had been trying to schedule a meeting with Morris for months but their attempts were unsuccessful.
“We tried to send him emails to find out what is going on...for some reason, he’s refusing to acknowledge the emails, he’s refusing to respond to the emails, every time we asked for a date there is no date,” assistant secretary of the Point Lisas branch Gamala Warner-Seecharan said.
Warner-Seecharan claimed Morris set a date for May 29 but they wanted a meeting sooner, and members made their way to the hall yesterday instead.
“We informed him we will be here. However, he did not make himself present,” she explained.
Warner-Seecharan said members have been disgruntled after notices in two daily newspapers stated Michael Annisette was no longer president general. Herbert Constantine was named as the new head of the union.
They blamed Morris for this.
“He has removed the executive council without the permission of the branches, he has put signatories on the cheques without permission from anybody,” she explained.
But when the members arrived at SWWTU Hall and did not see Morris, they soon received a call from a former union trustee who informed them that he was at Republic Bank on Independence Square.
“The bank contacted the old trustee and told him that Peter Morris is currently in the bank trying to withdraw a gratuity from the union account and put it on his personal account,” Warner-Seecharan claimed.
She said the trustee’s name was on the account so he also had to be notified.
She explained that members headed to Independence Square, where they confronted Morris and asked him to go back to the hall with them.
“We caught him walking out of the bank,” she said
But the one-on-one conversation turned chaotic quickly after one man, who seemed to be in support of Morris, got into an altercation with another member. This led to another squabble.
“You losing your head boy,” one of the men yelled.
Both men eventually left the premises and the members went back to the room to question Morris.
That too turned disorderly because members accused Morris of being dishonest.
Guardian Media eventually gained access to the meeting but by that time no discussions were taking place. Instead, it was more like a shouting match.
“You too damn thief,” one woman shouted at Morris.
“Who gave you that authority to sign off on that,” one man asked as he banged the desk where Morris sat.
Morris tried to defend himself but was interrupted every time by irate members.
“Nobody has respect for you anymore,” a woman said.
Several efforts to contact Morris thereafter were unsuccessful as he did not answer his phone.
Guardian Media also reached out to Annisette, who said he would comment at another time.
