Labour lead­ers vir­tu­al­ly de­clared war on the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship (PP) Gov­ern­ment yes­ter­day, claim­ing noth­ing has changed for work­ers since the May 24 gen­er­al elec­tion. Harsh crit­i­cisms came from two vet­er­an trade union­ists who have ex­pressed dis­sat­is­fac­tion with the cur­rent state of re­la­tions be­tween labour and the Gov­ern­ment. One of them, Vin­cent Cabr­era, pres­i­dent of the Bank­ing, In­sur­ance and Gen­er­al Work­ers' Union (BIG­WU), warned yes­ter­day some work­ers may soon take to the streets to vent their frus­tra­tion over lack of job se­cu­ri­ty. "Our troops are al­ready on the bor­der," he said, as he an­nounced that the union may lead Cli­co work­ers in a march on the Min­istry of Fi­nance. He said the work­ers, who are wor­ried about re­trench­ment, were be­ing to­tal­ly ig­nored by the PP ad­min­is­tra­tion. An­oth­er long-stand­ing labour vet­er­an, Lyle Townsend, who was sec­re­tary gen­er­al of the Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Work­ers Union (CWU) for 30 years, from 1976 to 2007, claims the Gov­ern­ment has "bought out" trade union lead­ers and there is no in­de­pen­dent trade union move­ment in T&T right now.

At a me­dia brief­ing at BIG­WU's head­quar­ters yes­ter­day, Cabr­era ac­cused the Gov­ern­ment of "de­pri­ori­tis­ing" the is­sues af­fect­ing Cli­co work­ers and on­ly seek­ing the in­ter­est of pol­i­cy­hold­ers. He said: "We are hear­ing that the Gov­ern­ment wants to merge Cli­co and British Amer­i­can and leave the union out so they can start to fire work­ers. "No­body is telling the work­ers or the union any­thing...we don't know who sell­ing, buy­ing or merg­ing. "Well, we tak­ing in front be­fore front take we. We have a right to be heard. We are not beg­ging for that. We are de­mand­ing that. "If they con­tin­ue to ig­nore us and if they re­trench work­ers, we will take to the streets. "And we will be call­ing on our in­ter­na­tion­al af­fil­i­ates, Union Net­work In­ter­na­tion­al, to get in­volved," he warned. Charg­ing that the PP seems to be break­ing its elec­tion man­i­festo promise to work with labour, Cabr­era added: "It (the war) de­pends on them (the Gov­ern­ment)."

An of­fend­ed Cabr­era claimed that Fi­nance Min­is­ter Win­ston Dook­er­an has re­fused to con­sult with BIG­WU, which he de­scribed as "a ma­jor play­er" in the Cli­co de­ba­cle. He said May 24 (gen­er­al elec­tion) had not changed any­thing and that Dook­er­an's stand was no dif­fer­ent to for­mer fi­nance min­is­ter, Karen Tesheira. "The union was nev­er con­sult­ed by the for­mer Man­ning ad­min­is­tra­tion on its plan to ef­fect strate­gic in­ter­ven­tion by the State. Dook­er­an has not con­sult­ed with us ei­ther," Cabr­era said. He said the union wrote to the per­ma­nent sec­re­tary in the Min­istry of Fi­nance ask­ing for an au­di­ence with the min­is­ter. "They ac­knowl­edged the let­ter and promised to con­tact us short­ly...That was one month ago," Cabr­era said. "Up to to­day, no one has called us for a meet­ing." He said the BIG­WU al­so wrote to Car­olyn John, act­ing fi­nance di­rec­tor of Colo­nial Life, ask­ing for a copy of com­mu­ni­ca­tion from the Cen­tral Bank con­cern­ing the pay­ment of sev­er­ance to re­trenched work­ers.

"She replied say­ing that the cor­re­spon­dence ought not to be cir­cu­lat­ed to 'third par­ties,'" Cabr­era said. "I think it's a de­lib­er­ate con­spir­a­cy to keep the union out of any dis­cus­sions." He al­so crit­i­cised the Gov­ern­ment's set­ting up of a one-man com­mis­sion of en­quiry in­to the Cli­co fi­as­co, ask­ing in­stead for an in­ves­ti­ga­tion by the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions.

"Even the Cen­tral Bank Gov­er­nor said there was fraud in Cli­co. What you wait­ing for to hold peo­ple?" he asked. Mean­while, Townsend is claim­ing that CWU sec­re­tary gen­er­al, John Ju­lian, and pres­i­dent, Joseph Re­my, to­geth­er with Fed­er­a­tion of In­de­pen­dent Trade Unions (Fi­tun) pres­i­dent, David Ab­dul­lah, have emas­cu­lat­ed the CWU. "They have tak­en over the run­ning of the CWU." Townsend said democ­ra­cy has been thrown out of the win­dow and peo­ple who are not mem­bers of the union are be­ing ap­point­ed through con­tacts to strate­gic po­si­tions. He said the end of ne­go­ti­a­tions in the TSTT mat­ter would show how the trade union was bought out.

His charges are based on the ap­point­ment of Re­my as chair­man of the board of Cipri­ani Labour Col­lege and Ju­lian to the board of the En­vi­ron­men­tal Man­age­ment Au­thor­i­ty. He said Ab­du­lah is a PP sen­a­tor, so Fi­tun is now in the hands of a po­lit­i­cal par­ty. Townsend said three more trade unions lead­ers are soon to be ap­point­ed to State boards. "It's a buy­out...There is no in­de­pen­dent trade union any­more," he lament­ed. "All of them are ei­ther in the Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment, PP or MSJ back­pock­ets. Work­ers are go­ing to catch hell for the next five years." Townsend is fur­ther claim­ing that cer­tain trade union lead­ers are seek­ing to un­der­mine the Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion (PSA). "The ac­cep­tance by the West In­dies Group of Uni­ver­si­ty Teach­ers, a large union, of a small salary in­crease, is a ploy to cut down on the PSA's strug­gle," Townsend said. "I am warn­ing the PSA to be on its guard." An an­gry Townsend is al­so call­ing on the head of the CWU to re­sign, or else..."I am go­ing to lead a cam­paign to move them out at the next union elec­tion in six months, or be­fore," he warned.