Trade union lead­ers yes­ter­day brand­ed Amal­ga­mat­ed Work­ers’ Union pres­i­dent Michael Pren­tice a “trai­tor” and “Ju­das” for plac­ing a wedge in the labour move­ment.

This af­ter Pren­tice and the AWU ac­cept­ed the 4 per cent wage in­crease of­fer from the CPO and signed off on it on Mon­day.

The move has led to two ma­jor labour groups, the Joint Trade Union Move­ment and Na­tion­al Trade Union Cen­tre, dis­as­so­ci­at­ing them­selves from the AWU and Pren­tice.

Speak­ing at a press brief­ing yes­ter­day, NATUC pres­i­dent James Lam­bert claimed the trade union move­ment had been be­trayed by Pren­tice and his union. How­ev­er, Lam­bert said he was not sur­prised by the de­vel­op­ment.

“That Pren­tice was a mem­ber of the Na­tion­al Trade Union Cen­tre and he be­trayed us and we were not even aware that he had left when he went to the Joint Trade Union Move­ment, but it is each man to his own,” Lam­bert said.

“I am dis­ap­point­ed... And that re­minds me of Ju­das Is­car­i­ot, when Ju­das had be­trayed Christ, he was at the ta­ble for the last sup­per when Je­sus said some­one around the ta­ble is go­ing to be­tray me. Ju­das was the first one to ask the ques­tion ‘Is it I mas­ter?’ and he left the meet­ing, im­me­di­ate­ly be­tray­ing Christ for 30 pieces of sil­ver. But for Michael Pren­tice, the pres­i­dent of the Amal­ga­mat­ed Work­ers’ Union, Ju­das did more bet­ter than him, he ac­cept­ed 30 pieces of sil­ver but Pren­tice took four.”

Lam­bert gave some de­tails about how what had tran­spired be­fore the AWU ac­cept­ed the 4% wage in­crease. He said the NUGFW, Con­trac­tors and Gen­er­al Work­ers’ Union and the AWU had agreed to ne­go­ti­ate to­geth­er, since they all rep­re­sent­ed dai­ly rat­ed work­ers at the 14 re­gion­al cor­po­ra­tions.

How­ev­er, he said Pren­tice de­cid­ed to go on his own with his union with­out alert­ing the oth­er union lead­ers.

Lam­bert said he feared the de­ci­sion will have grave ef­fects on the work­ers and re­tirees, as the of­fer places noth­ing for them on the ta­ble.

“You have be­trayed the work­ing class in Trinidad and To­ba­go and this has been said pre­vi­ous­ly by oth­ers. We’re not cer­tain that even the mem­ber­ship of Amal­ga­mat­ed is aware of what he has done, be­cause he con­tin­u­ous­ly said that the ex­ec­u­tive said to go along and we felt in our prin­ci­pal po­si­tion, you should have got­ten back to us and in­di­cat­ed his in­ten­tion,” Lam­bert not­ed

The AWU joined oth­er unions protest­ing against the 4 per cent of­fer in Port-of-Spain ear­li­er this month.

Mean­while, JTUM pres­i­dent An­cel Ro­get al­so dis­tanced him­self and the um­brel­la union group from Pren­tice and the trade union he leads.

“We are firm­ing our con­vic­tion that we ought to con­tin­ue to refuse the 4 per cent be­cause it means ab­solute­ly noth­ing, very lit­tle. Let me say that we want to dis­as­so­ci­ate and dis­tance our­selves from what was signed and ac­cept­ed yes­ter­day, that’s a mat­ter for him and his mem­bers. But we re­al­ly be­lieve that his mem­bers are not aware of the fol­ly that took place and the dan­ger, the in­jus­tice to them as a re­sult of ac­cept­ing a 4%”, he said.

Ro­get ex­plained why the oth­er unions are still strong­ly op­posed to ac­cept­ing the 4 per cent wage of­fer from the Gov­ern­ment.

“In 2013 to now, we would have faced enor­mous in­fla­tion, food price raised enor­mous­ly, fu­el price rise, oth­er liv­ing costs, house­hold items and so on, the ques­tion of books, school, bank loans, in­stal­ment loans, mort­gages and so on, across the board, gen­er­al­ly, liv­ing costs. And the cost just mere­ly to sur­vive in 2022 is chalk and cheese and there­fore, in terms of food, food ac­cord­ing to the Cen­tral Sta­tis­tics Of­fice, those sta­tis­tics, food in­fla­tion, move some 40%.”

Lead­ers of the labour move­ment said they will con­tin­ue to bat­tle against the of­fer and have vowed to get the work­ing class their just dues.