KAY-MARIE FLETCH­ER

Se­nior Re­o­prter

kay-marie.fletch­er@guardian.co.tt

The Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Work­ers’ Union (CWU) is dis­tanc­ing it­self from its for­mer sec­re­tary gen­er­al Clyde El­der, af­ter he en­tered the gen­er­al elec­tion race as a can­di­date un­der the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) ban­ner.

The union yes­ter­day made it abun­dant­ly clear that it has no af­fil­i­a­tion with El­der’s cam­paign, nor is it in sup­port of the UNC’s coali­tion of in­ter­ests.

The Oil­field Work­ers’ Trade Union (OW­TU) pre­sent­ed El­der and Ernesto Ke­sar as the trade union move­ment’s can­di­dates for La Brea and Point Fortin re­spec­tive­ly un­der the UNC coali­tion, af­ter the pair was screened by the Op­po­si­tion par­ty, on Wednes­day.

In a re­lease yes­ter­day, how­ev­er, CWU’s present sec­re­tary gen­er­al Joanne Ogeer al­so de­bunked claims that the union met with the Joint Trade Union Move­ment (JTUM) to en­dorse El­der as a can­di­date. Ac­cord­ing to Ogeer, the CWU on­ly found out about El­der’s can­di­da­cy on Wednes­day, which was when he screened for the po­si­tion at the UNC’s head­quar­ters in Ch­agua­nas.

And if she wasn’t clear on her stance, Ogeer al­so in­sist­ed that the me­dia re­frain from mar­ry­ing the union’s name to his cam­paign.

The state­ment said, “At this junc­ture, it is of para­mount im­por­tance to ad­vise that the Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Work­ers’ Union dis­tances it­self from any af­fil­i­a­tion with com­rade Clyde El­der be­ing a prospec­tive can­di­date un­der the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress. Com­rade El­der is free to en­ter, cam­paign and sup­port the po­lit­i­cal par­ty of his choice. The me­dia is asked to please cease and de­sist from us­ing any pho­tographs with com­rade El­der at­tired in the CWU wear and mak­ing ref­er­ence to him as the sec­re­tary gen­er­al of the Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Work­ers’ Union when re­port­ing or mar­ry­ing the Union’s name to his cam­paign,” Ogeer said.

“Fur­ther, the union wish­es to de­bunk any and all com­ments which states ‘the CWU met with JTUM’ on Mon­day, Feb­ru­ary 17, 2025, to en­dorse com­rade El­der as its prospec­tive can­di­date for La Brea un­der the UNC ban­ner for the up­com­ing elec­tions. The CWU on­ly learned of this de­vel­op­ment as it un­fold­ed on the af­ter­noon of Wednes­day, Feb­ru­ary 19, 2025. Apart from this, the union had no in­put in this de­ci­sion, as it does not con­cern the CWU.

“It is at this junc­ture, we re­main trans­par­ent in our views of be­ing ‘in­de­pen­dent’ and hav­ing the abil­i­ty to call any politi­cian to ac­count. The ex­ec­u­tive board can on­ly wish com­rade El­der all the best in his per­son­al am­bi­tions in this new po­lit­i­cal role. The CWU does not sup­port any coali­tion of in­ter­est and there is no ‘af­fil­i­a­tion’ to the UNC or the PNM.”

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia via tele­phone yes­ter­day, El­der said he has no prob­lem with the union’s stance, as his de­ci­sion to join the UNC was al­so an in­de­pen­dent one and has noth­ing to do with the CWU.

Al­so con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, Ogeer re­it­er­at­ed that the union was an in­de­pen­dent or­gan­i­sa­tion and does not rep­re­sent El­der’s po­lit­i­cal stance.

Mean­while, the CWU is still rep­re­sent­ing El­der in a bid to have his for­mer em­ploy­er, the Telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions Ser­vices of Trinidad and To­ba­go (TSTT), re­scind his 2018 re­trench­ment, as ad­vised by the court.

Ogeer con­firmed that the union met with TSTT of­fi­cials yes­ter­day and may now have to re­turn to the court, since TSTT has de­cid­ed against re­in­stat­ing El­der.

Ogeer said, “Based on what the com­pa­ny has in­di­cat­ed to the union, their in­ter­pre­ta­tion of the judg­ment does not con­tem­plate re­in­state­ment of the work­er, which is com­rade El­der.

“They have not re­scind­ed the no­tice of re­trench­ment thus far, so we be­lieve right now they are in a con­tempt of court. How­ev­er, the com­pa­ny would have asked for some time to dis­cuss the union’s po­si­tion but at the end of the meet­ing the union would have in­di­cat­ed to the com­pa­ny that it is best to seek an in­ter­pre­ta­tion of the court so that we can know best what is the court’s in­ter­pre­ta­tion of the judge­ment and have par­ties set this mat­ter aside.”

Asked how he felt about not be­ing re-em­ployed, El­der said, “I wasn’t sur­prised by it. TSTT has al­ways been con­sis­tent in be­ing vin­dic­tive where I am con­cerned. I think be­cause of the way I rep­re­sent­ed work­ers, be­cause of the way I would have car­ried every mat­ter to court against TSTT con­cern­ing that re­trench­ment and won every one.

“The way I would have al­so treat with cer­tain work­ers’ is­sues out­side of TSTT. It was al­ways a PNM agen­da to at­tack the trade union move­ment, which they have been do­ing con­sis­tent­ly, so I wasn’t sur­prised at all.”

El­der was among 500 TSTT work­ers re­trenched in 2018.

In Jan­u­ary, the In­dus­tri­al Court strong­ly crit­i­cised the state-owned telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions provider for its han­dling of the re­trench­ment of its work­ers.

The In­dus­tri­al Court al­so or­dered $10,000 in com­pen­sa­tion be award­ed to the 499 oth­er re­trenched work­ers.

At­tempts to con­tact TSTT were un­suc­cess­ful yes­ter­day.