Akash Sama­roo

The Joint Trade Union Move­ment’s (JTUM) planned protest for Sat­ur­day has been giv­en a nu­mer­i­cal boost, as the Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion (PSA) and Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) mem­bers have pledged their at­ten­dance.

PSA pres­i­dent Leroy Bap­tiste told Guardian Me­dia the de­ci­sion was made yes­ter­day.

“Work­ers have been ask­ing us, that they want to say some­thing, so we will give them that op­por­tu­ni­ty. In that re­gard, we are go­ing to in­vite work­ers who want to show their dis­con­tent with the treat­ment met­ed out to them that Sat­ur­day seems to be the day that has been called and we will par­tic­i­pate in it,” Bap­tiste ex­plained.

JTUM has called on cit­i­zens to gath­er out­side White­hall at 9 am to protest Gov­ern­ment’s ac­cep­tance of the Salaries Re­view Com­mis­sion’s (SRC) 120th re­port which pro­pos­es hefty salary hikes for the Prime Min­is­ter, Pres­i­dent and oth­er top pub­lic of­fi­cials.

JTUM’s dis­sat­is­fac­tion is al­so fu­elled by the cur­rent con­text of the wage ne­go­ti­a­tions where oth­er unions are be­ing of­fered in­creas­es capped at four per cent un­der the nar­ra­tive the coun­try can­not af­ford any­thing more.

Bap­tiste said pub­lic of­fi­cers must be treat­ed with the same re­spect as politi­cians.

“The work­ers are be­ing sub­ject­ed to un­equal treat­ment. Crit­i­cal work­ers in the coun­try, our pub­lic of­fi­cers, peo­ple who en­sure we have dri­ver’s per­mits, pass­ports, li­cens­ing our ve­hi­cles, birth cer­tifi­cates, death cer­tifi­cates and every­thing else, who run the coun­try, lit­er­al­ly they have been giv­en 0%-0%-2%, which has no re­la­tion to their hard work, re­sults and def­i­nite­ly no re­la­tion to the im­pact of in­fla­tion on their pur­chas­ing pow­er,” Bap­tiste said.

How­ev­er, he said the in­vi­ta­tion is open and his mem­bers will not be man­dat­ed to at­tend.

“It’s not in­dus­tri­al ac­tion per say, from my un­der­stand­ing is, the ac­tiv­i­ty is just to show up out­side the White­hall,” Bap­tiste ex­plained.

He not­ed, though, that this would be a pre­cur­sor for a PSA-planned mo­bil­i­sa­tion soon.

JTUM is al­so gar­ner­ing in­ter­na­tion­al sup­port, as the Caribbean Labour Sol­i­dar­i­ty (CLS) has com­mit­ted to show­ing its sup­port by pick­et­ing T&T’s High Com­mis­sion in Lon­don on De­cem­ber 6.

A me­dia re­lease said the CLS ex­ec­u­tive had not­ed what it called the “un­prece­dent­ed wave of in­dus­tri­al ac­tion sweep­ing the Caribbean is­lands of T&T.”

It said, “Caribbean Labour Sol­i­dar­i­ty wish­es to make clear its sup­port for the work­ers in Trinidad and To­ba­go. Work­ers, both blue and white col­lar, are in a mas­sive strug­gle against a state which wish­es to re­turn them to a pre-trade union era when work­ers had no rights and no trade unions. CLIS will al­ways sup­port those who are strug­gling against such dra­con­ian mea­sures.”

CLS al­so called for the, “recog­ni­tion of all trade unions and their rights, the reestab­lish­ment of col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing, the right of or­gan­ised work­ers to with­draw their labour and the un­con­di­tion­al lift­ing of in­junc­tions against the with­draw­al of labour.”

How­ev­er, JTUM will not be joined by the West In­dies Group of Uni­ver­si­ty Teach­ers (WIGUT), which is cur­rent­ly fac­ing an im­passe in ne­go­ti­a­tions over the Gov­ern­ment’s two per cent of­fer. Con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, WIGUT pres­i­dent Dr In­di­ra Ram­per­sad said she would not be in the coun­try over the week­end.

But JTUM will re­ceive sup­port from the par­ty it asked its mem­bers to ral­ly around on Labour Day this year.

Some UNC mem­bers yes­ter­day said they will be at­tend­ing with sup­port­ers.

Cou­va South MP Rudranath In­dars­ingh, Sen­a­tor Wade Mark and Ch­agua­nas May­or Fai­iq Mo­hammed con­firmed their at­ten­dance.

Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands there was no di­rec­tive from the Op­po­si­tion Leader for the UNC’s at­ten­dance but In­dars­ingh and Mo­hammed said their par­tic­i­pa­tion was a per­son­al choice and is in keep­ing with the par­ty’s prin­ci­ples.

In­dars­ingh ex­plained, “I am the shad­ow for labour and this is a strug­gle by the labour move­ment and I have seen it fit to ex­tend sol­i­dar­i­ty. The UNC has been born of a strug­gle for peace, bread, so­cial jus­tice and eq­ui­ty. The UNC has al­ways stood on the side of the work­ing class and will al­ways be a friend of the work­ers of Trinidad and To­ba­go. This was clear­ly demon­strat­ed be­tween 2010-2015 and the on­go­ing so­cial di­a­logue be­tween the UNC, NATUC, JTUM and the wider labour move­ment.”

Mean­while, Mo­hammed said, “This was my own de­ci­sion, made be­cause I’m com­mit­ted to serv­ing the peo­ple and do­ing what’s best for our com­mu­ni­ty. I have a lot of re­spect for my par­ty’s lead­er­ship and ap­pre­ci­ate their ad­vice, but this wasn’t some­thing they di­rect­ed me to do. It’s a choice I made based on what I be­lieve is right for the peo­ple I rep­re­sent.”

Oth­er Op­po­si­tion MPs such as Ravi Rati­ram and Dr Roodal Mooni­lal ex­pressed their sup­port for Sat­ur­day’s move­ment but could not com­mit their at­ten­dance.

Ear­li­er this week, Ch­agua­nas West MP Di­nesh Ram­bal­ly con­firmed his at­ten­dance.

Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar yes­ter­day did not re­spond to a mes­saged query on whether she will be at­tend­ing.